Merrill Lynch is the corporate broking success story that everyone wants to replicate. This can clearly be seen from the fact that Morgan Stanley was not the first to decide to go shopping at Merrill for its corporate broking team.

As Euromoney's annual awards show, best borrowers come in all shapes and sizes, winning acclaim because of their investor appeal, tight pricing, good timing, or structural ingenuity. But, as Kathryn Tully reports, activists on the buy side are developing a more formal view of the basics of an investor-friendly issuer.

Siemens Financial Services (SFS) has teamed up with UK securitization boutique SecDebt to try to bring SMEs and mid-cap companies to the capital markets. SFS and SecDebt reckon that between them they can cut the cost of issuing bonds backed by invoice debt in trade receivables-style deals.

It all looked propitious for FDI. The World Bank/IFC was touting it, reforms favouring foreign investment had been put in place and the opening of talks for EU accession seemed assured. Enter the element of destabilizing surprise that Turkey specializes in.

www.breakingviews.com

ABN Amro last month made a curious choice of words to announce the arrival of some new staff in its commodity derivatives division.

Appointed and paid for by issuers but charged with protecting investors' interests, bond trustees are in an ambiguous position. And with bondholders expecting more activism, trustees are coming under closer scrutiny.

Development bank AFD's issue offered government-style risk with enhanced yield. That was a winning formula with investors, whose interest rapidly took the e300 million deal's book to e1.2 billion.

Portuguese banks got through last year's recession remarkably smoothly. But despite their strength, there's still talk of further consolidation. Quite how this would be achieved is not clear, particularly as the government is likely to resist further foreign involvement.

Once derided as a UK anachronism, corporate broking is now the hottest game in the City. Morgan Stanley is the latest player to try to muscle in.

Of all the global investment banks, UBS has perhaps the most unlikely provenance, rooted as it is in private-banking skills. After transformational acquisitions a new UBS has emerged that means business. Group CEO Peter Wuffli outlines its ambitions in Asia.

By Fiona Maharg Bravo

Euromoney celebrates its thirty-fifth birthday this month. We look back on the capital markets of 1969 and forward, through the eyes of pioneers of that era and those born in that year, at today's markets and looming challenges.

www.breakingviews.com

The rich expect their investment advisers to be ahead of the herd in adjusting portfolios to market changes. When we asked private banks for model allocations they stressed diversification, but recipes for this varied widely.

It has taken three years to rein in costs and regulatory risks at CSFB. Now, at last, CEO John Mack is looking forward and wants to double profits by the end of 2006. Does the Swiss-American investment bank have what it takes?

Economic recovery in Japan is not expected to be accompanied by a rush of corporates to the bond markets. Many companies are still paying down debt and those that are borrowing can do so relatively cheaply through bank lending. Nevertheless, there are signs of growing activity from Japanese credits both domestically and in international markets.

Sandra Manzke is something of a legend in the hedge fund industry. The founder of Tremont Capital Management, she was an influential figure from the outset, with the knack of spotting talented managers such as Peter Lynch, founder of the Magellan fund, before they became famous.