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.

BNP Paribas has long been a staunch supporter of tennis and is firmly connected with the French Open championships at Roland Garros in Paris. But the surprising success of Tim Henman this year will surely have raised Gallic eyebrows.

It was a case of save the whales but lose the CEO on the island of Sakhalin off the far-east coast of Russia last month. Sakhalin Energy, a multi-billion dollar oil and gas project whose majority shareholder is Shell, is rethinking plans to build an offshore pipeline in the Piltun-Astokhskoye field ?to ensure minimal disturbance to the western grey whale?.

The timing couldn?t have been worse. The Yukos saga moved into its endgame as charges against both the oil company and its biggest shareholders went to court at the end of May. The bankruptcy of what was once Russia?s most valuable company now looks like a real possibility. Investors would have been unnerved anyway, but the start of the trials coincided with a string of bad news and Russia?s leading RTS index slipped, wiping out all of this year?s gains in a week.

Central America's republics share the problem of heavy fiscal deficits, which incoming administrations hope to cure. Much is also expected of the implementation of a free trade agreement with the US.

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.

The promised crisis never came and instead last year turned out to be a good one for most banks. This year is set to be even better as banking becomes structurally ever safer, though it will never be entirely risk free.

It has been more than seven months since Bank of America bought FleetBoston, and almost six since JPMorgan Chase and Bank One announced their deal. But still Citigroup hasn?t pounced, confounding those who were sure that the world?s largest bank would feel compelled to join the rush to build a national retail franchise in its home market.

Seeking funds for a US acquisition, Royal Bank of Scotland filled the book for a £2.5 billion equity placing in one day. The money raised will part fund the purchase of US bank Charter One Financial.

Barclays’ announcement last month that it had agreed to outsource cash management services for its larger UK corporate clients to Deutsche Bank is remarkable. Maintaining account services, domestic and international payments and collections, liquidity management and electronic banking are bread-and-butter banking activities. The provision of such unglamorous but vital services is an essential part of the cement that binds corporate customers to their relationship banks. So it can’t have been easy for Barclays to admit that its customers would be better off using Deutsche’s products and services than its own.

Investors panicked last month as fear spread that the US Federal Reserve would soon hike rates. Momentum players of the global reflation trade rushed to unwind positions in high-yield markets. Borrowers were forced to pull deals. The panic subsided as quickly as it arose and the sell-off failed to engulf global markets this time. What happens next?

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?

The European high-yield market ran into volatility last month on fears of US interest rate rises. But it is not life threatening. Fundamentals look good: fewer defaults, more diversity in issuers and buyers, and landmark deals.

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.

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.

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.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association is writing to capital markets regulators in the Middle East to see whether its derivatives documentation can be used in Islamic jurisdictions.