Everyone within hailing distance of Wall and Broad streets on the afternoon of October 19 may have experienced the same feeling: that our lives had taken one of those profound turns that would affect us in ways we couldn’t yet know.

A private banker is a friend, confidant and counsellor to an often idiosyncratic client. It's an intimate relationship, and a lucrative one. The Swiss still lead the field.

Big Bang has not been kind to British banks. Midland and Lloyds have their troubles. Hill Samuel failed to merge with UBS; Morgan Grenfell may be looking for a buyer. Yet the SG Warburg Group has emerged from Big Bang with a cohesion and profitability that is the envy of its merchant banking rivals – the flagship of the UK securities industry. But how? And whither Warburg now?

Are we about to witness the creation of a great Third World debt market? Will LDC loans be transformed into junk bonds and equities on a grand scale? Idle talk, some will say, but, in this special report, Euromoney argues the case for believing that a new market will soon rise like a phoenix from the flames.

Drexel was first into junk bonds; now there’s a gold rush – how much is worth competing for?

When Euromoney first pointed out the dangers of the leveraged buyout (April 1984) the fashion was new and exciting – too exciting, declared Paul Volcker, who subdued the general enthusiasm for a time, but the fashion came back, with complications explained in full for the first time here.

Competition between banks in China is something new, and it's catching on fast. It could prove a vital lubricant for Deng Xaioping's economic reforms. From January 1 three more institutions were allowed to handle foreign exchange or raise funds abroad. A plethora of top-quality Chinese borrowers could soon come to the international capital markets, rivalling the good names of CITIC and the Bank of China. But there are still some legal hurdles – and doubts about China's long-term future.

Citibank's William Rhodes has led reschedulings for Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Uruguay. His style is measured – but determined.

Persuading all the leading merchant families of six different Arabian and Gulf states to back the first serious investment bank in the region was some feat on the part of Nemir Kirdar. Now the president of Arabian Investment Banking Corporation – Investcorp – has to start delivering first class deals. By Peter Field

Banking has probably changed more over the last year than it did over the previous 20, so how should a major international bank position itself in a decade in which change will probably accelerate? Here’s a case study of one strategy – that of one of the most international of all banks, the Chase Manhattan.

Even the good African risks may reschedule as bankers hold off.

Sulaiman Abdel-Aziz al-Rajhi, the Saudi money changer, is conservative, pious and modest. The firm he founded is worth a far-from-modest $7 billion. How he prospered. By Michael Field

Eight African countries rescheduled last year and 21 turned to the IMF. Besides importing depression from the west, Africans have created problems for themselves. Yet some well-run countries show what the possibilities are.

Adela, the great Latin American dream that turned into a nightmare, has made history of a kind – its bonds are the first publicly-listed Eurobonds ever to be rescheduled.

The memorandum which western commercial bankers have agreed to present to Poland is extraordinary in that it would give the bankers an IMF role in directing the Polish economy.

When Armin Mattle of UBS made Stanley Ross run for cover, it was a sign of just how unpopular the grey market had become.

Jose Rafael Trozzo swayed people in Argentina and around the world until his Banco de Intercambio Regional was shut down – how did he manage it? Steve Downer in Argentina and Nigel Bance and Julia Bright in Europe explain.

A meeting was held to discuss was the major financial question to be raised so far by the Iranian crisis: why had the $500 million syndicated loan for the government of Iran been declared in default so quickly?

By Nicholas Faith and Alison Macleod

At the end of what is probably the most famous trading room in the world sits the world's most famous trader: John Gutfreund, managing partner of Salomon Brothers, a portly, restless figure who, like a vigilant bear, stalks the corridors between the trading desks in the vast trading expanse that is known as the Room. 

A 10th anniversary essay by David Rockefeller, chairman, The Chase Manhattan Bank NA.

"From my window, I can see much of the wealth of this country," said Merton Dagut, chief economist of Nedbank. Peering out of his office in the 48-floor Carlton Centre in Johannesburg, he was referring to the Witswatersrand, where most of the country's goldmines are situated. In many respects, South Africa is still a developing country.

When Bayer's $200 million financing hit the Eurobond market in the second week of January it met a guarded welcome. The scarcity value of German corporate paper combined with the weight of lead manager Deutsche Bank seemed to ensure a smooth path for the issue. But was this the time, given the reluctance of investors, to spring such a deal?

Bankruptcy has become a way of life in Zaire. It started to fall behind on servicing its external debt in mid-1975, and its economy has stumbled into deeper and deeper depression.

It is the deal of the year, the financing that had everything. This was the second jumbo financing for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It was also the second within a year. The first jumbo, for $1 billion, was signed in January, having run into major problems over pricing and the information memorandum.

An interview with the prime minister of Singapore.

Moscow is the centre for five important banking institutions, including the two Comecon organizations, IIB and IBEC. At the top of the tree is Gosbank, the state bank for the USSR. The chairman of its board of directors, Vladimir Sergeyevich Alkhimov, is not a member of the Politburo, but he probably has more power than many of its members.

They share the same ideology. Each is based in Moscow. But the bankers at Kopievski Lane like to compete with the bankers at Presnenski Val, and it seems that recently the competition developed into a race.

David Rockefeller is a man under pressure. At 63, he has three years before retirement rules force him to step down from the chairmanship of Chase Manhattan Bank. That is not a lot of time for the tasks that confront him.

Inside the Association of International Bond Dealers' AGM, 1977.