An investment bank is a financial institution that assists individuals, corporations and governments in raising capital byunderwritingand/or acting as the client's agent in the issuance ofsecurities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved inmergers and acquisitions, and provide ancillary services such asmarket making, trading ofderivatives,fixed incomeinstruments,foreign exchange,commodities, andequity securities.Unlikecommercial banksandretail banks, investment banks do not take deposits. From 1933 (Glass –Steagall Act) until 1999 (Gramm –Leach –Bliley Act), theUnited Statesmaintained a separation between investment banking andcommercial banks. Other industrialized countries, includingG8countries, have historically not maintained such a separation. There are two main lines of business in investment banking. Trading securities for cash or for other securities (i.e., facilitating transactions, market-making), or the promotion of securities (i.e.,underwriting, research, etc.) is the "sell side", while dealing withpension funds,mutual funds,hedge funds, and the investing public (who consume the products and services of the sell-side in order to maximize their return on investment) constitutes the "buy side". Many firms have buy and sell side components. An investment bank can also be sp lit into private and public functions with aChinese wallwhich separates the two to prevent information from crossing. The private areas of the bank deal with privateinsider informationthat may not be publicly disclosed, while the public areas such as stock analysis deal with public information. An advisor who provides investment banking ser vices in the United States must be a licensedbroker- dealerand subject toSecurities & Exchange Commission(SEC) andFinancial Industry Regulatory Authority(FINRA) regulation. Corporate finance is the area offinancedealing with monetary decisions that business enterprisesmake and the tools and analysis used to make these decisions. The primary goal of corporate finance is tomaximizeshareholder value. [1] Although it is in principle different frommanagerial financewhich studies the financial decisions of all firms, rather than corporations alone, the main concepts in the study of corporate finance are applicable to the financial problems of all kinds of firms. The discipline can be divided into long-term and short-term decisions and techniques.Capital investmentdecisions are long-term choices about which projects receive investment, whether to finance that investment withequityordebt, and when or whether to paydividendstoshareholders.On the other hand, short term decisions deal with the short-term balance ofcurrent assetsandcurrent liabilities; the focus here is on managing cash,inventories, and short-term borrowing and lending (such as the terms on credit extended to customers). [citation needed] The terms corporate finance and corporate financier are also associated withinvestment banking.The typical role of aninvestment bankis to evaluate the company's financial needs and raise the appropriate type of capital that best fits those needs. Thus, the terms “corporate finance” and “corporate financier” may be associated with transactions in which capital is raised in order to create, develop, grow or acquire businesses.