Minority investors in Russian companies have got their act together. Before the 1998 crisis foreigners were making enormous returns from a soaring stock market. The few that bought into problem companies, and saw their investments diluted, won the sympathy of the market but little else.

The senior Botswanan banker who told Euromoney last year that he didn't care what rating Botswana got, as long as it was better than South Africa's, has finally got his wish.

As the European credit market has grown in the past two years, banks have struggled to position themselves to capitalize on the opportunity. In a bid to win much more lucrative underwriting business than high-grade, frequent issuers ever offered, they have poured money into credit research, importing staff from the US, where credit analysis is a long-familiar concept, and plundering the rating agencies for talent. But the response from investors has been mixed. While sell-side credit analysts may offer a convenient shortcut to essential facts and figures about a company, fund managers are quick to highlight their lack of independence. In a volatile credit market, buyers of credit bonds are doing more of their own analysis in-house. Still, brokers insist that this doesn’t mean their role is under threat.

A little more than three months after Greece's entry into Emu, the country finds out that eurozone membership does not guarantee immunity from financial and other crises raging in neighbouring countries, such as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. However, membership has helped reduce, if not eliminate, the sensitivity of its bond and equity markets to events in nearby emerging markets.

Understanding sovereign risk is the key to investing in central Europe, where foreign investors have an important role to play, says Ashmore Investment Management’s Jerome Booth

HypoVereinsbank’s decision to combine its mortgage banks under one roof has revived the long-running debate about the validity of the specialist bank principle - the foundation of Germany’s system of mortgage banks.

David Komansky has found an innovative new way of getting analysts on his side - he insults them. The Merrill Lynch chief executive was taking questions from the floor after delivering his speech at the firm's second annual investor day conference in New York last month.

In the first quarter of this year, the US Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by 150 basis points. But Nasdaq is down 25%, most European equity markets have fallen 15% to 20% and even the Dow, which had been flat for two years, is now off 14% for the year.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, America's two largest agency debt issuers, have now implemented the latest steps in their voluntary six-point programme agreed with Congress last year to reassure clients and the public of their safety and soundness.

With south-east Asian economies recovering, governments are making cautious moves to restructure and expand their power industries to meet increased demand. None wants a California-style crisis. However, foreign investor interest is likely to be limited and financing must be provided by local debt and equity markets.

Amid the extreme volatility in financial markets around the world so far this year, one of the biggest surprises has been the strength of the US debt markets. It has been a roaring start to the year. In January over $70 billion of high-grade corporate paper of between two and 30 years' maturity was issued. Short-term interest rate cuts helped create a steeper yield curve, which historically has been good for corporate bonds.

Just after the piece of masonry connected with the side of the mongrel's head, a showdown ensued outside Banca Agricola's administrative headquarters. The pack of dogs, which seconds earlier had been snarling at pedestrians and leaving their own special deposits on the bank's doorstep, stared at their attacker. The man who threw the missile glared back.

In a world where sovereign bondholders are disparate and disunited they are hard pressed to get a good deal if a defaulting sovereign and its bank advisers devise a unilateral exchange offer or other restructuring. With the often bitter experience of three such restructurings behind them, bondholders are getting together to protect their position.

Issuer: RHM Finance Amount: £650 million Type of issue: whole-business securitization Date of issue: February 28 Arranger: JP Morgan

Jorge Gallardo, minister of finance and economy of the Republic of Ecuador, offers his views on sovereign debt restructuring.

It may have been buried towards the back of a long report but it has certainly elbowed its way into the spotlight since. A call by Paul Myners, in his review of the UK's investment industry, to address how and why fund managers pay commissions to brokers has sparked a heated debate.

Jean Lemierre, president of the EBRD, discusses the bank's role in central and eastern Europe, where it is still struggling to define its place.

Whatever Russia's government is or is not doing, Russian companies have found their own reasons for making improvements in corporate governance and boosting shareholder value. At least one market player dubs this consolidation process reprivatization. However there is still much to be done to restore the brittle confidence of local investors and only after this has happened will foreign funds consider returning to a market which knows how to burn them. Ben Aris reports from Moscow

The Romanian government, many observers reckon, is playing a game of bluff. The IMF is told tales about privatization and restructuring while the populace is fed sops. The government, meanwhile is mired in inaction. Investors aren’t going to rush into such a market until they are offered deals that are sufficiently attractive to outweigh unexpected risks.

Economic and competitive pressures facing telecoms operators in Europe and internationally could, in turn, expose the equipment suppliers to heightened credit and legal risk.

A small Andean nation proves that it is possible to successfully restructure a bond issue. And to a great extent, the success of the Ecuador exchange offer was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The international strategic investor has become, and will continue to be, the key figure in eastern European privatization. The most effective sales seem to be those that have involved transferring a substantial equity stake to a foreign company.

Those central and eastern European countries that have pushed furthest and fastest with privatization have benefited from healthy government finances, restructuring and modernization of key industries and enhanced economic growth. That’s undeniable. But privatization remains ever politically contentious. Selling their banking systems to foreigners was hard to stomach, and now these countries are selling even more essential services, their energy generators and power distributors. If they can maintain the political will, at least governments will find buyers in these sectors, unlike in telecommunications.

Last month's announcement of a merger between DG Bank and GZ Bank was a long awaited step in the consolidation of the top level of Germany's cooperative banking sector.

Romania is not planning to over-compensate for scarcity by issuing heavily. But it is clearly keen to establish itself in the international debt markets.

Turkish banks will have to roll over $6 billion in syndicated debt this year. Though first-tier banks will be able to roll over, albeit at higher interest rates, life will not be so easy for medium-sized and smaller banks.

The Emerging Market Creditors Association is becoming nervous because Ecuador included exit constraints in its exchange offer. Now they have been used successfully once, they may be used again elsewhere.

On February 28, Indian finance minister Yashwant Sinha announced an annual budget that should have given a strong push to economic growth. Tax cuts, a sharp cut in interest rates and a raising of the ceiling on foreign portfolio investment in Indian companies should have given the stock markets the boost they badly needed.

The German Pfandbrief market, in particular the jumbo sector, has grown dramatically in recent years and assumed a larger and larger slice of European bond fund managers’ portfolios. But now many of the leading issuers face significant challenges in the underlying lending businesses that generate Pfandbrief collateral. The German mortgage banks are seeking non-traditional business opportunities, as well as starting to sort out their underperforming mortgage lending businesses. Volumes are likely to shrink.

How times have changed. Only three years ago, any foreign investor planning to come to Indonesia would have been delighted to receive an appointment list featuring the following names: Bob Hasan, minister of trade and industry, Ginandjar Kartasasmita, co-ordinating minister for economics and finance, and Ali Wardhana, economic adviser to then president Suharto. If he also managed to see Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, the president's daughter, he would probably have been immediately ready to sign on the dotted line.