Editor’s letter: What goes around, comes around

‘Challenging times’ was the main headline of our cover feature in last year’s end-of-the-year double issue, but for many in structured trade and commodity finance, the challenge of 2008 was simply finding the time to do all the deals that the market was crying out for thanks to the credit crunch – until the third quarter when Lehman Brothers collapsed.

Feature
Review of the Year
In the last quarter of the year, trade activity tailed off dramatically. Is this a temporary hiatus caused by the sharp fall in commodity prices and the collapse of Lehman Brothers or indicative of more entrenched challenges? TFR has talked to six top trade-finance professionals to ask their opinions.

News
People & places: BPN president arrested on suspicion of fraud and money laundering
The former president of the bank at the centre of a legal battle with SFC Swiss Forfaiting Company over an unpaid letter of credit (LC) has been arrested on suspicion of tax fraud and money laundering.

Regular
Market view: US trade policy
Jon E. Huenemann of Miller & Chevalier Chartered examines the likely direction of US trade policy under President-elect Barack Obama.

Feature
Feature: Open account
How can local banks survive the move to open account? The answer, says Dominc Broom, lies in partnerships between them and the global giants.

News
Deal news
Kazexportastyk signs $100m PXF... Mechel secures credit from VTB... LUKoil acquires Akpet
... Evraz signs with VEB

Feature
Feature: Global financial crisis
The ‘great deleveraging’ has begun. How will it affect trade and trade finance in 2009? By Graeme Burton.

Feature
Feature: Spain and Latin America
Spanish banks looked to South America when they wanted to expand overseas, but they have been careful about where they have invested their funds, writes Ivan Castano.

News
People & places: EBRD disburses first factoring loan in Ukraine
The EBRD has finalised its first factoring facility in Ukraine in a deal with Ukreximbank arranged under the EBRD’s Trade Facilitation Programme.

News
People & places: ECGD to continue Fixed-Rate Export Finance scheme
ECGD will introduce a temporary £1bn ($1.48bn) guarantee scheme aimed at smaller exporters in a bid to encourage exports through the recession.

News
People & places: Credit insurance costs set to rise, warns Euler Hermes
The cost of credit insurance is set to rise after Euler Hermes, the world’s biggest credit insurer, cut its 2008 profit forecasts and warned that its combined ratio may reach 100% before the end of the year.

News
People & places: Metals suffer Depression-era price plunge
Metal prices have fallen as far in the past six months as they did during the Great Depression of the 1930s, according to Barclays Capital’s commodities researcher Kevin Norrish.

Feature
Feature: Structured trade finance
When a borrower under a strade finance transaction hits the buffers, the key is to stay cool, says Denton Wilde Sapte’s Geoffrey Wynne.

Regular
News analysis: Shipping piracy
Piracy is becoming a growing problem in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world – despite the presence of 16 navies in the region. By Graeme Burton.

Regular
Profile: Norbert Fritsch
If Norbert Fritsch’s family had not escaped from East Berlin in 1960 – just ten months before the Wall went up – he might have discovered forfaiting as a client, rather than a banker.

Feature
Feature: Francophone Africa
Soon, there will be little left of France’s special relationship with its former colonies in Africa, except nostalgia and sentiment, reports Ismaila Dieng.

Feature
Sponsored feature
The outsourcing of risk management can help banks to maintain and strengthen client relationships – even in a time of crisis. Sponsored feature by Lamon Rutten.

News
Lars Millberg: ‘How I started on The Benche’
Lars Millberg, Global Head of Trade Finance at SEB, says that he had the idea for setting up The Benche, a newly launched neutral web site for trade finance professionals to swap knowledge and ideas, after he first started exploring Web 2.0 web sites.

Regular
Omni commentary
Credit crisis: Increased risk of sovereign defaults in the emerging markets – part two

News
People & places: EBRD to invest record amount in 2009
The EBRD is proposing to invest up to €7bn in 2009, a record amount intended to ameliorate the worst effects of the global financial crisis in the region.