European bond investors are on the attack. They have not so far manned the barricades but they are distinctly edgy, maintaining that they are suffering from mushroom syndrome: people keep them in the dark and feed them bullshit. So they are fighting back. Their main bone of contention is that a company can be restructured with a negative impact on existing bonds and with little in the way of financial disclosure.
The European pension fund crisis could be partly resolved by persuading companies to manage their working capital better and release funds. One estimate is that European companies have about E600bn trapped in inefficient cash flow management. Release it and they can top up their ailing pension funds and a lot more besides – new acquisitions, new growth, things that could bring moribund European economies back to life.
Where are they now? Michael Philipp, former head of global asset management at Deutsche Bank, hands me a business card that reads: “Vision Fuel Services, Peachtree Street, Atlanta”, a company of which he is “principal”. Is it an opticians or a fuel supplier? “It’s my son’s business,” he says, none too helpfully.
A new survey reveals that many private bank clients are dissatisfied with the services they receive, mainly due to middle and back office failures. If the banks do not act quickly not only could they lose custom but service providers could also suffer mandate losses. Roxane McMeeken investigates.
Euroclear plans business contingency revamp Settlement system Euroclear plans to implement a new business continuity programme built on a framework of three data centres to store and process transactions. Euroclear maintains that the arrangements will enable each of its entities to resume their technical operations within one hour of a local disaster, such as a fire or a bomb, or within three hours of a major regional disaster that disables both primary data centres. It will also be able to work in its newbusiness contingency environment for up to two years.