91.   The fund aims to provide Japanese retail investors access to a range of leading global equity hedge fund investments, the company said.

92.   The opportunity for Salomon Smith Barney to acquire the County NatWest business followed a recently announced decision by the NatWest Markets to exit the global equities business.

93.   Tokyo stocks closed lower Friday ahead of the reweighing of key global equity indexes.

94.   Global equity markets would therefore remain confined to relatively narrow ranges ahead of the mid-year corporate results in the United States.

95.   He said that investments funds were banking on metals now because they felt the global equity and bond markets could have peaked.

96.   But dealers warned sentiment towards global equity markets remained negative due to the possibility of more US corporate scandals and still high valuations for American shares.

97.   Yves Tuloup managing director of global equity at Societe Generale said the French bank was deeply committed to Asia.