Search results for

The key takeways from the first day of IFLR's Asia M&A Forum in Hong Kong

The competition regime for Comesa has been the target of numerous criticisms over its first 13 months. But a senior figure at the regulator has told IFLR that it is taking swift action to resolve its teething problems

Antonio Felix de Araujo Cintra Paulo Roberto Martins de Toledo Leme The Brazilian Securities Commission (CVM) announced in February an important decision from its board of commissioners regarding preferred shares issued by Brazilian publicly-held corporations. During the registration procedures of the initial public offering (IPO) of the Brazilian airline Azul, the company had its request to become public denied by the CVM's technical department. The decision was motivated by a specific section of Azul's by-laws that entitled each preferred share to a dividend equivalent to 75 times the dividends payable to the common shares. For the CVM's technical team responsible for reviewing Azul's application, the provision in Azul's by-laws did not comply with Brazilian corporate law because it violated the general principle that economic rights should be related to shareholders' political rights.

Olga Barreto of Consortium explains the rights and obligations of the country's microcredit entities

Market participants reveal their key concerns with European policymakers’ latest attempt to harmonise and regulate cross-border trading

Jan Willem Möller of Loyens & Loeff analyses why the country is emerging as the eurozone’s hub for dim sum bonds

Esin Attorney Partnership's Muhsin Keskin on how the country's comprehensive capital markets reforms will cause fundamental shifts in local primary markets

In Europe, the pace, complexity and interconnectedness of post-crisis regulation continues. New regimes stack on top of old, blocking out the lights of 100 in-house office windows. Directives are replaced and contradicted; domestic interpretations confuse EU regimes; integration with Dodd-Frank looms on the horizon.

US ABS is hoping for something more exciting The asset-backed securities (ABS) market appears to be in full recovery mode. The figures for 2013 were close to their 2000 levels, with increases in auto loans and esoterics helping to pick up the slack created by the dark cloud still hanging over the mortgage industry. The real sign of the market's return however, is its creativity. Though a large amount of vanilla deals are often the hallmark of a market returned to full health, ABS has always thrived on innovation. The trick will be balancing that innovation with appropriate risk management techniques. While there will always be downturns, the latter will help manage those dips in a way that leaves confidence intact, thereby allowing innovation to rebuild the market.

The European Commission's (EC's) proposal to reform regional banks' trading activities is the latest in a line of misguided attempts to prevent a repeat of the 2007 – 2008 global financial crisis. Previously, the UK had favoured a structural split that would force banks to detach their risky trading activities from their retail operations. In the US, the Volcker rule imposes a ban on proprietary trading in the banking group. Europe's recent offering includes both structural separation provisions and a Volcker equivalent that would ban proprietary trading.