"Cocos" has become the user-friendly name for a new type of hybrid bond created to help UK bank Lloyds raise money from investors to break away from a government insurance scheme for bad loans.

This nickname seems to have caught on in financial circles as it is much snappier than the bonds' official title: Enhanced Capital Notes.

The name Cocos seems to have derived from "contingent convertible," which describes one characteristic of these bonds - they convert to equity in certain circumstances.

Coco was famously the first name of French fashion designer Chanel. She was not known for her understanding of the credit markets but she did know a thing or two about fashion and the value of tradition over new-fangledness.

One senior capital markets banker pointed out these comments she made:

"Innovation! One cannot be forever innovating. I want to create classics."

Some bankers hope Cocos can become credit market classics, but admit that the jury is still out.

"You wonder if your chance will ever come or if you're stuck in square one."

When I heard about GM keeping its Opel unit, that line from a song by British band Coldplay came to my mind. After all those long nights of paltering on job cuts and money, GM was having a change of heart.

The sale of Opel to a group led by Canadian car parts maker Magna -- announced in September -- was widely considered a done deal. Turns out, it was less done than more. Citing improving business conditions and the strategic importance of Opel, GM decided it would be better to alienate the German government that provided it with a loan to sweeten the sale of the unit to Magna than to lose the business. GM said it would repay the rest of the 1.5 billion euro ($2.2 billion) bridge loan if Berlin requested. The loan helped save Opel from being sucked into GM's dip into bankruptcy this year.

"This is a black day for Opel," an employee, who declined to be named, said in front of the company's headquarters in Ruesselsheim, near Frankfurt. German government officials were said to be seething, as were the Russians, who's Sperbank had tied up with Magna to do the deal. But not all of Europe was angry. British unions welcomed the news. "It is fantastic news for the UK and right that General Motors does not break up its family and instead retains ownership of (Opel sister brand) Vauxhall," said Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of the Unite union.

Analysts say big questions remain about what GM will do with Opel when consumer-friendly car scrapping schemes expire. At that point, will it be back to square one?

The three-way fertilizer fight between CF Industries, Terra and Agrium may be approaching its end game. Over the weekend, CF raised the cash portion of its hostile offer for smaller rival Terra. It said it was able to add more cash because of strength in stock and debt markets.

CF is itself fending off a hostile takeover bid from Agrium. Last month, possibly throwing a monkey wrench into CF's bid for Terra, Agrium said it would sell part of a nitrogen fertilizer facility to Terra to overcome regulatory issues related to its hostile takeover bid for CF.

In its latest move, CF is offering $32 in cash -- including a $7.50 special dividend that Terra plans to pay -- and 0.1034 of a share of CF common stock for each Terra share. That would amount to $40.61 per share based on CF's Friday closing price and represents a 28 percent premium to Terra's Friday closing price, the company said in a statement. It is about 5 percent higher than CF's previous stock bid of 0.465 CF shares for every Terra share.

But perhaps more importantly, the new bid would not require approval from CF shareholders as it is now mostly cash. Terra had said CF would not be able to get its all-stock offer approved by CF shareholders. Cutting them out of the process is always a good way to help move a deal along.

As head of the world's largest custodian of financial assets, Robert Kelly is paid to be alert to buying opportunities. So it's interesting to hear Kelly, chairman and chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon, tell reporters in Beijing that financial assets in Europe are more attractive than those in Asia and that, as a consequence, the bank is refocusing its businesses.

European financial institutions were hit harder by the global economic crisis than their global peers, and U.S. banks are in a better position to mount takeovers in Europe after going through a government-led process of consolidation and capital-raising, he said. "What you will see in coming quarters is that U.S. financial markets and banks are stronger than the European banks now," he said.

If some European banks were to sell businesses to raise capital, BoNY would be interested in buying, he said. If timing counts for anything, Kelly's interest has probably been piqued by Dutch bancassurer ING, which said on Monday it would split in two, transforming itself into a smaller European lender.

Magna International and Sberbank told EU antitrust regulators today that they do intend to buy Opel from General Motors. After seven months of haggling, this was the way it was supposed to go. Indeed, it appeared to be the natural order of things when the EU competition watchdog set a Nov. 27 deadline to decide whether to approve the takeover. The review was on its list of planned mergers under review.

But this is Opel. The deal has had so many political and financial twists and turns that it would have been foolish to expect anything but the unexpected at this late date.

At the end of last week, GM said it would decide next Tuesday whether to proceed with the deal. Armed with a monkey wrench and political assurances that German financing for the planned takeover could be available to anyone -- not just Magna/Sberbank -- GM could yet decide to keep the unit.

Such a decision would take a huge amount of will for the recently bailed-out company, not to mention a healthy dose of chutzpah.

They may be placing smaller bets, but sovereign wealth funds were back with a vengeance in the third quarter.

Global corporate mergers and acquisitions activity involving sovereign wealth funds jumped sixfold to nearly $22 billion in the quarter, with 37 deals completed. Global announced M&A volumes involving state investment vehicles stood at $21.8 billion, up from $3.6 billion in the second quarter, according to our data.

The number of deals more than doubled from 17 in the April-June period. Only two weeks into the fourth quarter, there were five pending or completed deals with a combined value of $164.7 million. At the height of the boom in the first quarter of 2006, sovereign wealth funds sealed 35 deals worth $45.7 billion.

Managers at sovereign wealth funds -- those who have kept their jobs -- probably feel they have a lot to make up for, having lost most of some $80 billion they poured into banking shares before the peak of the crisis.

It's official: Salomon Brothers has been completely picked apart.

Citigroup's agreement to sell Phibro, its profitable but controversial commodity trading business, to Occidental Petroleum today puts the finishing touches on a slow erosion of a once-dominant bond trading and investment banking firm.

When Sandy Weill (pictured left) staged his 1998 coup -- combining Citicorp and Travelers, Salomon Brothers was a strong albeit humbled investment banking and trading force. Yet little by little, a succession of financial crises, Wall Street fashion and regulatory intervention has whittled away at the once-dominant firm.

Not long after the Citigroup was formed, proprietary fixed income trading --  once the domain of John Meriwether, was shut down after the Asian debt crisis fueled losses that Weill could not stomach.

The Salomon name disappeared long ago as investment bankers and underwriters were rebranded Citigroup Global Markets.

Now Phibro, the former Philips Brothers that merged with Salomon in the early 1980s, is to be cast off because its energy traders made too much money when the rest of the bank suffered losses and required a $45 billion of taxpayer bailout.

Nobody ever got poor betting on Chinese demand for gambling, though the big players in Macau have seen a few busted flushes along the way. With more than a billion fatalists eager to hit the tables, and only one place to do it (Macau is China's only legal gambling venue), it's not hard to see the case that Wynn Macau and Las Vegas Sands are making for Hong Kong investors. It's the same story Hong Kong and Macau magnate Stanley Ho has made for decades.

Wynn Macau's $1.63 billion Hong Kong IPO, the sixth-largest in the world this year, was considered rich, despite the hype and that "sure thing" ring. After all, the colony is covered with half-finished projects and other remnants of the last time this too-good-to-be-true investment turned out to be what it was.

Wynn Macau shares ended 6 percent higher on Friday, valuing the casino giant at $6.9 billion. The solid debut bodes well for rival Las Vegas Sands, which plans to raise up to $2 billion in a Hong Kong offering for its Asia assets, most notably in Macau.

Macau gambling revenues hit a monthly high of $1.4 billion in August, a faster-than-expected recovery compared with Las Vegas, and revenues are believed to have been stronger still in September as China relaxed restrictions on its citizens crossing into Macau from Guangdong Province, reports Sui-Lee Wee.

Analysts say the IPO was perfectly priced and that the twin dangers of competition from other potential gambling hotspots in the region and the inscrutable winds of Beijing's political climate could turn the tables quickly on these investments. Place your bets.

China's dominant position in world commodity markets is as enduring as one of its emblematic Forever bicycles. As Communists, the People's Republic spent years perfecting the art of buying in bulk, dictating prices through sheer mass of demand. Now that the country has become the world's factory, it would make sense for China to take a more refined approach to trading raw materials. It's worth seeing the latest moves by China's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund in that light.

Having been rebuffed in its efforts to purchase offshore commodity assets in Australia, China's purse managers are taking stakes in commodities brokerage businesses. Most recently, China Investment Corp bought a 14.5 percent stake in trading firm Noble Group for $850 million. The purchase comes just days after CIC signed a cooperation pact with commodity trader Glencore.

Some are looking at this as a flexing of muscle -- an "attempt to increase its influence in the sector," the BBC calls it. Our reporter Neil Chatterjee also hits on this angle, talking about Beijing trying to gain "leverage in opaque global markets and access to the raw materials needed to feed its economy."

A 14.5 percent stake in a Hong Kong brokerage hardly seems enough to wield much influence in global markets. And the Glencore deal is seen as more focused on China developing market expertise.

More likely, CIC sees a good investment opportunity in Noble, and its political masters see an opportunity to improve China Inc's understanding of how global commodity markets work. There is lots of pent-up demand for such experience in China, and that's enough of a reason to invest in an Asia-based commodities broker. In some ways, CIC is just making a very logical bet.

In as much as it wants to be able to improve its knowledge, China is also trying to gain influence. But let's not kid ourselves about what kind of influence the world's fastest growing economy is already exercising in global commodity markets.

It may be a fertile market, but Caterpillar and Navistar are hardly breaking new ground with plans to set up a joint venture in the People's Republic. A source tells us the two U.S. machine makers are teaming up with China's Jianghuai Automobile to set up a truck venture, a source said, hoping to gain a foothold in China's 150 billion yuan ($22 billion) heavy truck market. But while the market may be fertile, it is a crowded space for foreign firms, with Daimler, MAN and others already tied-up with local partners.

Heavy truck sales in China rose 11.75 percent to 541,256 units in 2008, more than double the level in 2003, according to Nomura Securities, and are set to rise in the coming years on state pump-priming and infrastructure development.

While the money might be there, demand might not be for bourgeois trucks. "Foreign truck makers face a much bigger challenge in China comparatively because an Audi is a status symbol, while a Volvo truck can only push up trucking firms operating cost," said Chen Qiaoning, an industry analyst with ABN AMRO TEDA Fund Management.