After 11 years at Mackay Shields, Steven Tananbaum concluded that there was room for a new player in the limited field of top-quality high-yield asset management. The result was Golden Tree Asset Management.

HSBC's retail and corporate bank marketing has stressed its prowess as the world's local bank. However, the quest for a much enhanced global investment banking business demands a break from group tradition, one that redeployed and enhanced top management seems intent on implementing.

Spain's banking market is Europe's most attractive, and theoretically at least there's still room for more consolidation. Spanish bankers, though, reckon potential targets are not in a rush to give up their independence. But then they might overcome their hesitancy if the price is right.

When John Studzinski, Studs to his friends, left Morgan Stanley after 23 years with the firm, a lot of people thought he would retire to devote time to his many other interests in and around London, such as his sponsorship of the arts, notably opera, and his support of the homeless. There are other interests too - he breeds pedigree dogs and spent the weekend before meeting Euromoney assisting with the delivery of eight male puppies.

Some of JPMorgan's foreign exchange staff in London were bound to be unnerved when they heard that the big cheese from New York was moving across the Atlantic.

Contraversy has dogged Mahathir Mohamad's 22 years' dedication to making Malaysia a healthy modern economy. Now on the brink of retirement the prime minister spoke to Chris Cockerill about his country's achievements and his refusal to bow to the prescriptions of the developed world.

Anatoly Chubais, CEO of energy company RAO UES, is planning a return to politics in the forthcoming Duma elections in Russia. As Boris Yeltsin's deputy prime minister in the 1990s, Chubais was responsible for many of the government's most controversial policies.