Capital markets industry comprises companies or individual financial professionals or institutions that operate by trading financial securities. Basically, when institutions that are in public or private sectors sell their securities on the capital markets, they raise funds and this market consists of primary and secondary markets that have their own processes and organizations that follow a different steps and procedures. The stock and bond markets are an integral part of the capital markets, for instance when a company goes public, it allows general public to invest their money along with companies, and in another instance when governments issue treasury bonds in the bond market to fund their spending initiatives.
Globally, almost all the the Banking & capital markets industry partners are the top players in the banking industry, as well as in brokerage, stock exchange and credit card sectors. They deal with large amounts of funds and cash and their processes and systems are protected in order to keep them confidential. The firms are run by finance experts and legal experts that work together towards managing finance and drive change in the economy, be it for company's profit or for the overall economic stability. Firms' top level and managing partners participate in setting the global and industry agendas through collaborative involvement in projects, dialogue series, and communities that are designed based on the top priority interests of the banking and capital markets' community. While the agendas are set, major topics include and range from challenging business issues, to core policy recommendations, to corporate social responsibility.
These activities leverage the Forum’s unparalleled ability to convene senior decision makers from all different sectors, creating an effective platform for collaboration, innovation, and leadership. And the industry partners’ enjoy privileged access to the Forum’s networks across business, government, academia, and non-governmental organizations. Industry Partnership also allows a company’s CEO or Chairman to participate in the Financial Services Governors community at the Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos. Key annual milestones in the Industry Partnership Programme are the Financial Services Governors’ Meeting at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos; the Industry Partnership Strategists Meeting in the Fall in New York; the Financial Services Roundtable in conjunction with a Forum Regional Summit; and project working sessions.
A new normal is emerging for banks and capital markets-securities firms. Regulatory reform, more stringent capital requirements, risk management considerations, disruptive technologies, a low interest rate environment, enhanced reporting requirements and other issues means that a return to growth will be as challenging as ever. Sophisticated strategies and solutions will be required for financial institutions to gain a competitive edge.
As a result of the on-going debt crisis in the Eurozone and slowing emerging markets, 2011 turned out to be a relatively difficult year for global capital markets. Most of these macro-economic issues also persisted in the first half of 2012. In 2011, low investor confidence led investors to shy away from the riskier equity markets and look for relatively safer bets in the debt markets. Interest in commodities increased among the fund houses due to their ability to act as risk diversification tools. Gold emerged as the biggest beneficiary of this trend and continued its bull run in 2011.
Slate Properties said it believes secondary U.S. markets are larger than primary Canadian markets. By way of example, the firm cited the 50th most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. is Birmingham-Hoover, AL (1.13 million), roughly equal to Edmonton, Alberta (1.16 million) which is the 6th largest census metropolitan area in Canada. Toronto would rank 8th in the U.S. by population. Slate will look to acquire property priced from $2 million to $30 million (including the impact of leverage). Each such transaction would be expected to require approximately $1 million to $10 million of equity investment.
Major players in the capital markets industry include Accenture, Oracle, Apple Inc, IBM, Pfizer, Samsung, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Coca Cola, Visa, Verizon and Bank of America.