Goldman Sachs has had an extremely busy year. The international equity highlight was the coordination and lead management of Deutsche Telekom's privatization, the largest ever at $11.4 billion. This was considered by many commentators to be the deal of the year. Other feathers in the Goldman cap included the UK's biggest IPO, for mobile-phone provider Orange, and the largest US IPO, for telecommunications company Lucent Technologies, worth $3.25 billion. The levels of oversubscription on Goldman deals suggest it is not just doing big deals but also very popular ones. It has also been active in equity-linked-instruments, having been involved in various ground-breaking transactions. Several deals were notable not just for their volume but also for their innovative structuring. These included a mandatory convertible for Daimler-Benz, the first ever issued by a European corporate, and the first sovereign exchangeable transaction - for Italy's INA - executed through a new equity product created by Goldman Sachs called a privatization exchangeable note. There are no signs of a slackening of the pace - in the coming year Goldman has been mandated to lead-manage deals worldwide.
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