Industry news

April 3, 2013: Chi-X Poaches Getco’s Fildes as Australian CEO; Swaps Among Bank Affiliates Exempt Under CFTC Clearing Rule; S.E.C. Sets Rules for Disclosures Using Social Media

Chi-X Australia gets a new CEO from GETCO. Banks are covered under new Dodd-Frank swap market rules, unless they happen to be trading between their own affiliate companies. Spinoffs, anyone? The SEC announces guidelines and an affirmation that under certain circumstances it is ok for companies to use social media to announce things.

First Read

Social media comes of age
Veronica Augustsson, Cinnober
In the mid-90s, there were lively debates on international panels about whether the Internet had anything to offer financial markets. “Absolutely not” was the resounding answer from this conservative industry. Now, we are having the same discussion about social media, and a host of opinions and beliefs are out there, even if…

-> You could have predicted the MF Global crash on LinkedIn two weeks before it happened by just looking at the frequency of updated CV’s.

-> You can analyze customers’ evaluations of products and services in real time via Twitter and Facebook feeds.

-> Crowdfunding is already an established form of financing for the SME sector.

I’m sure that social media will have a great impact on us and our industry. And I’m sure we will see new actors, who are social media savvy, succeed.

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S.E.C. Sets Rules for Disclosures Using Social Media
MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED – NYTimes.com
Chief executives can now feel free to post, blog or tweet — as long as they inform investors about their social media strategy first. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday outlined new disclosure rules that clarify how companies can use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to disseminate information provided they meet certain requirements.
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***VA: This is just the beginning. The social media impact in the financial markets will be easy to Like… but I think we can leave the endorsements behind. Sorry, LinkedIn.

**JK – Now, let’s see that 142 character disclaimer, shall we?

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Kid gloves approach for Swiss regulation
Javier Blas, Commodities Editor – FT.com
Why did the Swiss government put on kid gloves to review the country’s giant physical commodities trading industry? The real answer lies buried deep in the official report that Bern published last month: a survey by the country’s finance department which highlights the significant loss of attractiveness to traders that Switzerland potentially faces in the next five years.
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***VA: There must be a reason for why they had to look over the regulation in the first place. Is that reason no longer relevant just because they are afraid other markets have looser controls?

**JK – Let’s call it kid glove arbitrage.

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A solution for the problem of Rule 1.73
Galen Stops – FOW
At the beginning of October 2012 Regulation 1.73, introduced in the US by Commodity and Futures Trading Commission, came into effect causing widespread consternation amongst market participants. As a result the CFTC granted an extension of the compliance deadline to June 1 for the sections of Rule 1.73 concerning give-ups and bunched orders for futures and swaps.
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**JK – Tech is catching on to regs.

***VA: Jim, isn’t the tech always steps ahead of regs?!

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Wall Street Horizon Boosts Low-Latency Events Feeds
Waters Technology
Woburn, Mass.-based corporate earnings and event data provider Wall Street Horizon has expanded the scope of its low-latency dividends and earnings data announcement feeds beyond data extracted from corporate press releases, to include updates made to its corporate events database by its team of data analysts.
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***VA: For sure, the information will be out and available in social media. You just need to know what you are looking for.

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Benchmark review puts commodity traders on alert
Suzi Ring – Financial News
The move by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate whether price-fixing manipulation exists in the London gold and silver markets has sparked fears among commodity traders that they will be sucked into the broader regulatory overhaul of benchmarks.
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NFA Chairman Chris Hehmeyer Talks Bankruptcy Reform
MarketsWiki.tv

One of the issues that emerged from the MF Global collapse was the complex and often frustrating US bankruptcy process. In the case of MF Global, futures customers’ claims were lumped in with other creditors. As such, it took more than a year for customers with segregated accounts to get their money back through the bankruptcy trustee. Chris Hehmeyer, CEO of HTG Capital Partners and chairman of the National Futures Association (NFA), spoke with JLN editor-in-chief Jim Kharouf about the need for bankruptcy reform for the futures industry. It’s a tall order, he says, but Hehmeyer believes it is critical to the future of the industry.

Watch the video »

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Northwestern Mutual Study Finds Americans Taking on More Risk Than They Would Prefer
PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance
Americans continue to hold their purse strings tight and favor cautious choices with their money, according to research from Northwestern Mutual’s 2013 Planning & Progress Study. That said, nearly one in four people (23%) say they’d prefer to be more cautious but feel they have too much catching up to do and 22% say they’ve dipped into their retirement or savings in the past three years.
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***VA: Awareness of your risk is key. Preferably in real time. But thinking of the sub-prime mortgages, it seems like a good move that some are spending less…

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Age counts more than sex for risk aversion
Ralph Atkins in London – FT.com
Supposedly stuffy and conservative, the Bundesbank is not an obvious source of insight into the role of women in finance and investing. But Germany’s central bank not only has a female vice-president – Sabine Lautenschläger is one of the few top monetary officials in the world who is not male – it is also pioneering research into the impact of gender differences.
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***VA: Agree that education is important. Soon time to worry about young guys’ education. The trend is that girls are dominating the schools in Scandinavia.

**JK – Girl Power!

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Bungled bailout heralds shift in attitudes
John Kay – FT.com
The suggestion by the Dutch finance minister that the bungled bailout of Cypriot banks was part of an evolving new approach to financial crises shocked markets. But is it possible Jeroen Dijsselbloem is right to suggest that there is a fundamental change in public and political attitudes to bank bailouts?
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European Equity Options Trading Conference Amsterdam
9 April 2013 — The Hilton, Amsterdam
FOW returns to Amsterdam in April for the 3rd Annual Equity Options conference in the spiritual home of European equity options. Over the past two years, this event has firmly established itself as a key event in the diaries of the management of European proprietary trading houses, funds and banks involved in equity options trading.

This year key discussions will include panels on the future of market making, opportunities in volatility trading, the changing exchange landscape in Europe and how the internalisation of trades will impact markets. There will also be a special panel giving an inside view on US listed options trading and an Oxford union-style debate on high-frequency trading
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MarketsWiki

MarketsWiki Page of the Day
eSpeed, Inc.
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MarketsWiki Recent Updates

People

Jonas Hansbo; Christopher K. Hehmeyer; Rob Cornish; Mary L. Schapiro

Companies, Organizations and Groups

International Securities Exchange; U.K. Financial Services Authority; BGC Partners, Inc.; Kottke Associates; Chicago Climate Futures Exchange; ESpeed, Inc.; NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.

Products

Tbricks; A/c/e electronic platform

Statistics

37,572,245 pages viewed, 7,442 articles, 156,405 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics

Lead Stories

Chi-X Poaches Getco’s Fildes as Australian CEO to Replace Fowler
Adam Haigh – Bloomberg
Chi-X Australia Pty appointed John Fildes as chief executive officer to lead the company, which is the only rival venue to ASX Ltd. (ASX) for equities trading in the nation. Fildes, who previously ran strategic development for Getco LLC in Singapore, will join Chi-X this month and will replace current CEO Peter Fowler, who will step down May 1, according to an emailed statement.
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Swaps Among Bank Affiliates Exempt Under CFTC Clearing Rule
Silla Brush – Bloomberg
Barclays Plc (BARC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and other banks will be exempt from Dodd-Frank Act swap market rules when trading between their own affiliates under a measure completed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
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***VA: So you can put all bad positions in a subsidiary and default…

LME hires EuroCCP lieutenant for clearing push
Tim Cave – Financial News
The London Metal Exchange has hired the head of operations at European clearing house EuroCCP into its fledgling post-trade division, as it forges ahead with plans to build its own clearing facility, Financial News has learned.
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***VA: Good to see that LME is gearing up with speed

Nasdaq opens new front in fixed income
Michael MacKenzie, Arash Massoudi and Philip Stafford – FT.com
For Nasdaq OMX, home to Microsoft, Google and Apple, the game is no longer solely about equities.
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City study slams EU transaction tax
Robin Wigglesworth in London – FT.com
The European Union’s plans to introduce a tax on financial transactions could “seriously” increase the cost of borrowing for the bloc’s member governments and companies, according to a study sponsored by the City of London.
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***VA: Sweden’s already been there, done that. Will not ever do it again. Trading disappeared.

Monte Paschi Says Nomura, Deutsche Bank Colluded to Hide Losses
Bloomberg
The world’s oldest bank said the two firms were aware Monte Paschi’s then managers wanted to hide losses and designed with them two derivatives aimed at achieving that goal, the Italian lender said in a 74-page report to shareholders.
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A Debate in the Open on the Fed
BINYAMIN APPELBAUM – NYTimes.com
Federal Reserve officials regularly air their views in public speeches, but they rarely engage in public debates. On Tuesday night, two of the officials who disagree most sharply about the Fed’s current policy did just that.
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Cyprus, IMF Reach Bailout Agreement
MATINA STEVIS – WSJ.com
Cyprus and the International Monetary Fund reached an agreement Wednesday for a E1 billion ($1.28 billion) lifeline that will supplement E9 billion in aid the island will get from its euro-zone partners.
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Hollande is missing in action during Cyprus crisis
Darrell Delamaide – MarketWatch
Where in the world is French President François Hollande? The euro zone was once again teetering on the brink with the crisis in Cyprus, and European leaders were pulling all-nighters to hammer out a plan to save the banks there without torpedoing the common currency
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Payments for mom-and-pop stock orders reveal conflicts
Reuters via Yahoo! News
By John McCrank – U.S. market makers are increasingly paying discount brokers for trading business, raising questions about whether mom-and-pop investors get the best possible prices when they trade online.
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***VA: Another outcome of Madoff

Regulatory

SEC’s new social media policy falls short
CNN Money
SEC identifies social media problem, but fails to propose adequate solution.
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CFTC’s Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight Issues Time-Limited No-Action Letter for Commodity Pool Operators of Securitization Vehicles
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ESMA Publishes Draft RTS To Determine Types Of Alternative Investment Fund Managers
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[Japan] FSA publishes Weekly Review No.39
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Exchanges & Trading Facilities

CME Group Volume Averaged 12.5 Million Contracts per Day in March 2013
CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced that March 2013 volume averaged 12.5 million contracts per day, flat compared with March 2012. Total volume for March 2013 was more than 249 million contracts, of which 88 percent was traded electronically. First-quarter 2013 volume averaged 12.5 million contracts per day, up 1 percent from first-quarter 2012
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Average daily volume of 9.7 million contracts at Eurex Group in March
In March 2013, the international derivatives exchanges of Eurex Group recorded an average daily volume of 9.7 million contracts (March 2012: 10.1 million). Of those, 7.3 million were Eurex Exchange contracts (March 2012: 7.4 million), and 2.4 million contracts (March 2012: 2.7 million) were traded at the U.S.-based International Securities Exchange (ISE).
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Turnover at Deutsche Börse’s cash markets at 97.3 billion euros in March
Order book turnover on Xetra, the Xetra Frankfurt Specialist trading and Tradegate stood at E97.3 billion in March (March 2012: E118.7 billion). Of the E97.3 billion, E89.6 billion were attributable to Xetra (March 2012: E109.3 billion). E4.3 billion were attributable to the Xetra Frankfurt Specialist trading (March 2012: E5.9 billion). Order book turnover on Tradegate Exchange* totalled approximately E3.3 billion in March (March 2012: E3.5 billion).
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ISE Reports Business Activity for March 2013
The International Securities Exchange (ISE) today reported an average daily volume of 2.4 million contracts in March 2013. This represents a decrease of 11.7% compared to March 2012. Total options volume for the month was 47.3 million contracts. ISE was the second largest U.S. equity options exchange in March with a market share of 17.5%*.
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MarketAxess Announces Monthly Volume Statistics for March 2013
Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance
MarketAxess Holdings Inc. , the operator of a leading electronic trading platform for U.S. and European corporate bonds, emerging markets bonds and other types of fixed-income MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (MKTX), the operator of a leading electronic trading platform for U.S. and European corporate bonds, emerging markets bonds and other types of fixed-income securities, today announced total monthly trading volume for March 2013 of $51.5 billion, consisting of $32.8 billion in U.S. high-grade volume, $2.3 billion in eurobond volume, and $16.4 billion in other volume.
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Trading Statistics March 2013
NASDAQ OMX today publishes monthly trade statistics for the Nordic and Baltic markets.
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The Spanish Stock Exchange Traded E51.96 Billion In March
Equity trading volume in the first quarter totaled E162.12 billion, down 8.4% from the same period in 2012; The trading volume in ETFs to the end of March increased 70% year-on-year; In March, the Derivatives Market posted its highest trading volume for the quarter, at 5.5 million contracts; Trading in the Corporate Debt market was E153.55 billion in March, the highest figure during the first quarter
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Burgundy Monthly Report – March 2013
The average daily turnover was EUR 70.9 (93.6) million, a decrease of 24.3 percent. The total turnover was EUR 1,417.8 (1,871.5) million, a decrease of 24.2 percent.
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Chi-X Canada Announces Pricing For CX2
Chi-X Canada ATS Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of alternative trading venue operator Chi-X Global Holdings LLC, today announced the pricing schedule* for its new ATS, CX2 Canada ATS. The new market place is scheduled to launch on Friday, May 3rd.
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Moscow Exchange Net Rises as Money Markets Offset Securities
Bloomberg
The Moscow Exchange posted a 22 percent profit gain last year as rising income from money-market and currency fees outweighed a drop in revenue from securities.
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VTB Plans to List All New Shares in SPO on Moscow Exchange – Interfax
Dow Jones
Russia’s second-largest financial institution, VTB Bank, plans to list all new shares offered in an upcoming secondary public offering on Moscow’s primary stock exchange, the bank’s president said Wednesday, according to Interfax.
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[SIX] More stringent approach to breaches of reporting obligations
Members of the boards of directors and of the executive committee of listed companies must report transactions in the shares and financial instruments of their own companies. The companies in turn publish the reports on the SIX Exchange Regulation website. If those individuals who are subject to reporting obligations fail to fulfil their obligations, the company is required to take appropriate action against them.
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Cyprus Stock Exchange Announcement – Trading Resumes For Almost All Securities Of Listed Companies – Exceptions Bank of Cyprus Public Company, Cyprus Popular Bank Public Co
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Taiwan’s Asustek Computer Lists Global Depositary Shares On The Luxembourg Stock Exchange
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Hedge Funds & Managed Futures

Half of Hedge Funds Think Their Competitors Are Cheating
Wall Street Journal Blogs
Hedge-fund employees seem to agree with federal authorities that their industry needs to clean up its act.
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Hedge Fund Industry Survey Reveals More than One-Third of Professionals Feel Pressured to Break the Rules in Pursuit of Alpha
Press Release
An independent survey of hedge fund professionals commissioned by law firm Labaton Sucharow LLP, HedgeWorld and the Hedge Fund Association, revealed that nearly half (46%) believe that their competitors engage in illegal activity, more than one third (35%) have personally felt pressure to break the rules, and about one third (30%) have witnessed misconduct in the workplace.
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Commodity trader CF Partners launches first hedge fund
Risk.net
CF Partners, active in the commodities market since 2006, has launched a long/short equity hedge fund after hiring Alvaro Ventosa from Spanish fund manager Cygnus Asset Management
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Paulson Fund Investor Case Dismissed for Lack of Standing
Bloomberg
An investor’s lawsuit against John Paulson’s $23 billion hedge fund over its reported loss of about $460 million in Sino-Forest Corp was dismissed by a federal judge.
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Hedge Funds Struggle, but Loeb Stands Out
CNBC
Hedge funds, on average, returned just above 3 percent in the first quarter of 2013, a brutal return compared to buyers of an S&P 500 index fund, who enjoyed a 10 percent return on their money.
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Rhonda Ryan leaves in PineBridge shake up
Kiel Porter – Financial News
Rhonda Ryan, head of European investments at private funds group at asset manager PineBridge Investments, has departed the firm as part of a shake-up of the business, it has emerged.
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GLG Partners Hires Deutsche Bank’s Mohit Kumar for Fixed Income
Bloomberg
GLG Partners, a hedge-fund unit of Man Group Plc, has hired Mohit Kumar from Deutsche Bank AG, where he was head of European interest-rate strategy.
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Jeff Skoll loses his investment manager
CNN Money
Stephen George leaves Capricorn to form an alternative investment firm.
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Chipping Away at the Glass Ceiling in Private Equity
New York Times
Private equity firms are still male-dominated places, but women are navigating the career ladder, and some are striking out on their own.
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Hedge Fund Association Extends Reach With Three New Regional Chapters
Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance
The Hedge Fund Association today announced three appointments that demonstrate its continuing expansion. The HFA has appointed regional directors to head its newly established chapters in Australia , Texas and Utah .
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Numerix and JPMorgan Unveil New Quantitative Research for Modeling Stochastic-Local Volatility
Numerix announced the results of its latest quantitative research paper “USLV: Unspanned Stochastic Local Volatility Model” authored by Dr. Igor Halperin, Executive Director of Model Risk and Development at JPMorgan and Dr. Andrey Itkin, Senior Vice President, Head of Quantitative Development at Numerix, both Adjunct Professors at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.
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Banks & Brokers

The next chapter in the transatlantic bank battle
Ben Wright – Financial News
Some literary critics argue that among all the books ever written there are really only seven basic plot types: tragedy, comedy, quest, voyage and return, rebirth, overcoming the monster, and rags to riches. At times over the past three decades, the investment banking industry has been dominated by just one: the Americans are taking over the world.
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Barclays High-Pay Culture Brought Disrepute: Report
MARGOT PATRICK And MAX COLCHESTER – WSJ.com
Barclays PLC suffered from “a lack of self-awareness” in recent years as a culture of high pay and short-term incentives brought the bank into disrepute, according to an independent report by lawyer and investment banker Anthony Salz.
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Barclays prime broker moves to hedge fund
Dan McCrum in New York – FT.com
The head of Barclays prime broking business has left the bank to join Millennium, the $18bn hedge fun run by Israel “Izzy” Englander, according to people familiar with the situation.
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Goldman Sachs beats rivals as capital markets rally in first quarter
Reuters via Yahoo! News
LONDON – Goldman Sachs topped global banking league tables for equity capital markets and mergers & acquisitions activities in the first quarter, as buoyant stock markets boosted appetite for dealmaking.
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Goldman Sachs Has Become The Most Hipster Bank On Wall Street
Business Insider
Goldman Sachs is becoming the most hipster bank of Wall Street. Why? If you haven’t noticed, the investment banking giant has been involved in several cool projects in Brooklyn.
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Bank of America Settles With Credit Union Regulator
New York Times
The bank agreed to pay $165 million to settle charges by the regulator involving sales of mortgage-backed securities to corporate credit unions that have since failed.
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TARP Is Mostly Dead and Fannie Mae Is Alive
The Atlantic Wire via Yahoo! News
Fannie Mae, the government-funded mortgage lender, had some surprising news earlier today. During 2012, for the first time in four years, it didn’t require any funding from the Treasury Department. And, better yet, it contributed $7.6 billion back into the government’s pocketbook. Which inspired us to check in on the government’s other semi-willing recession-era investments.
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JPMorgan Chase website outage linked to server, not cyber attack
LA Times
Customers trying to use JPMorgan Chase’s website were frustrated again by four hours of disrupted service, but there was a twist this time: The outages were caused by a technical problem with the bank’s systems, not by a cyber attack.
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Clearing & Settlement

Investors fight for a slice of Cleartrade
Suzi Ring – Financial News
Cleartrade Exchange, the Singapore-based trading platform which put a 51% stake in its business up for sale in February, has said it has extended the sale deadline by a month after strong interest from investors.
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ISDA: Risk Sensitive Capital Treatment For Clearing Member Exposure To Central Counterparty Default Funds (ISDA paper)
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ISDA Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee: Dex One Corporation And SuperMedia Bankruptcy Credit Event
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Indexes & Products

Q1 Global ETF Flows Top $70B, DXJ Stars
Index Universe
Investors poured more than $18 billion into U.S. ETFs in March and over $54 billion in the entire first quarter, as DXJ, WisdomTree’s currency-hedged Japan ETF, was the most popular ETF so far in 2013—a year in which inflows are on pace to easily top last year’s record of $188 billion.
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Market Vectors Index Solutions Announces March Performance of Market Vectors Hedge Fund Beta Indices
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Notenstein Private Bank Ltd to issue structured products with Scoach Switzerland [pdf]
jlne.ws/11luIVj

BM&FBOVESPA Announces The 1st Preview For Ibovespa And Other Indices, Valid For May-August 2013
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S&P Dow Jones Indices Announces Changes To The S&P/TSX Canadian Indices
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Technology

Allegro Appoints Managing Directors in EMEA and APAC for Global Expansion
Allegro Development Corporation, a leading provider of energy trading and risk management (ETRM) software, announced today the appointment of Steven Ferrigno as Managing Director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Mark Weaser as Managing Director of Asia-Pacific (APAC).
jlne.ws/11luKfN

Broadridge’s PROactive Named “Best-in-Class” in Reconciliation Applications Technology Analysis for Financial Services …
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (BR), a leading provider of technology solutions and services for the global financial services industry, today announced that it has been recognized as having “Best-in-Class” technology for Workflow Integration, Risk Management and Enterprise Support in the CEB TowerGroup 2013 Reconciliation Applications Technology Analysis.
jlne.ws/11luKfR

HFMWeek Names Eze Castle Integration a Best Cloud Computing & Outsourced IT Services Provider Award Finalist
PRWeb via Yahoo! News
Eze Castle Integration, a leading provider of strategic IT solutions and private cloud services to hedge funds and alternative investment firms, today announced that HFMWeek has named the firm a finalist for Best Cloud Computing & Outsourced IT Services Provider in its European Hedge Fund Services Award.
jlne.ws/11luKfX

Fitch Solutions Joins Bloomberg PolarLake Managed EDM Service – Fitch Solutions Credit Ratings Data Strengthens Value Of EDM Service For Risk Management Processes
Fitch Solutions will provide its credit rating data through Bloomberg PolarLake’s Enterprise Data Management (EDM) service, executives from both companies announced today.
jlne.ws/11luKfZ

TMX Datalinx Welcomes ITG to Co-location Facility
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MillenniumIT – Burgundy Market Data Available On FIX/FAST
jlne.ws/11luKwd

Enforcement

CFTC Revokes Registrations Of Gordon A. Driver And Axcess Fund Management, LLC
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced the revocation of the registrations of Gordon A. Driver of Las Vegas, Nevada, and his company Axcess Fund Management, LLC (Axcess). Axcess was registered with the CFTC as a Commodity Pool Operator, and Driver was registered as an Associated Person of Axcess and listed as its sole principal.
jlne.ws/11luKwe

SEC: Foreign Traders Agree To Pay $3.3 Million To Settle Charges In Nexen Insider Trading Case
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ASIC bans accountant for dishonest conduct
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Securities dealer scales down operations following ASIC review
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Environmental & Energy

EU capped carbon emissions fell 1.4 percent in 2012
Reuters
Emissions from power plants and factories covered by the European Union’s carbon market fell by 1.4 percent last year, preliminary like-for-like data showed on Tuesday, helping keep the EU on track to reach its 2020 emissions reduction target.
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**RKB — By country: among some of the biggest EU economies, Britain’s emissions rose 4.7%, France’s rose 3.9% and Germany’s by 0.5%; Poland was down 3.2% and Italy’s emissions fell by 5.7%.

India seeks return on energy efficiency beyond the carbon market
Thomson Reuters Alert Net
When U.S.-based carbon investment firm C-Quest Capital first came to India in August 2010 to distribute energy-efficient lighting at scale, it did not anticipate suspending operations less than two years later.
jlne.ws/14LYaXG

With Stanford Fellowship, Senate Renewable Energy Advocate Shuns K Street Path
The New York Times
Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat who retired as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in January, is going to Stanford Law School on a one-year fellowship to specialize in renewable energy, as Stanford becomes a kind of energy-in-exile center.
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**RKB – Bingaman, Chu, Shultz. Who next?

Asia-Pacific

Why China’s economy might topple
Martin Wolf – FT.com
Over the next decade, China’s growth will slow, probably sharply. That is not the view of malevolent outsiders. It is the view of the Chinese government. The question is whether it will do so smoothly or abruptly. On the answer depends not only China’s own future, but also that of much of the world.
jlne.ws/11luJbN

UBS’s Burnett joins mate Dowie for Asia StanChart role
Reuters via Yahoo! News
By Saeed Azhar and Michael Flaherty SINGAPORE/HONG KONG – Standard Chartered PLC has hired Peter Burnett from UBS AG as its North East Asia head of corporate finance, beefing up its senior leadership with another high-profile regional veteran of the Swiss investment bank.
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HKEx Welcomes Government Appointments To Its Board
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) welcomes the Government’s appointment of Mrs Margaret Leung Ko May-yee and reappointment of John Barrie Harrison, Stephen Hui Chiu-chung and Michael Lee Tze-hau to its Board.
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HSBC Unit to Sell Insurance Businesses In Singapore to AXA Life
Dow Jones
Financial services company HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBA.LN) Wednesday said unit HSBC Insurance (Singapore) Pte. Limited has entered into an agreement to sell its group term life insurance and group medical insurance portfolios in Singapore to AXA Life Insurance Singapore Private Limited.
jlne.ws/11lw6Hz

Japan Central Bank Plan Meets Skepticism
PHRED DVORAK AND ELEANOR WARNOCK – WSJ
Japan’s central bank is readying a bold plan for reversing chronic price falls and hitting an inflation target of 2% in two years, but a chorus of naysayers—from government officials to senior economists and market-watchers—is saying it can’t be done.
jlne.ws/11lvBgr

China’s ICBC to buy Taiwan bank stake
Sarah Mishkin in Taipei – FT.com
China’s ICBC bank has announced plans to buy a 20 per cent stake in one of Taiwan’s biggest banks, the first significant proposed investment by a mainland buyer into a Taiwanese financial group.
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Frontier Markets

Alwaleed Says Saudi Bourse Should Open to Foreign Investors
Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s biggest economy, should open its stock market to foreign investors, billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said.
jlne.ws/11lw6XS

Morgan Stanley names new co-heads India operation
Reuters via Yahoo! Finance
HONG KONG – Morgan Stanley has named Aisha De Sequeira and Sanjay Shah as the new co-heads of its business in India, replacing Jayendra Nayak, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
jlne.ws/11lw6XU

Credit Suisse Expands Private Wealth Reach In Eastern Europe & Middle East
Trefis
Late last week, Credit Suisse ( CS ) announced its decision to acquire Morgan Stanley’s ( MS ) Private Wealth Management in Europe and the Middle East, in a move that highlights the Swiss banking group’s continued focus on growing its wealth management business.
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Dubai Financial Market Achieves 95.3% Compliance In Annual Results Disclosure Of UAE Companies
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