Highly commended: Lehman Brothers, UBS

Highly commended: Lehman Brothers

Highly commended: Lehman Brothers, ITG

Highly commended: Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein

What is Morgan Stanley doing increasing derivatives exposure to non-investment-grade credits? That was the question a lone investor posed after looking at the investment bank's 10Q.

Morgan Stanley's site has been running for four years but many changes have been made in that time. The latest version has been available for the past year. Globally, 1,167 companies are registered on the site, comprising producers, refiners, industrials, utilities and transportation companies.

Runner-up: UBS Warburg

The abrupt resignation of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's president, John Mack, is the most serious yet in a series of setbacks over the past six months for a firm once seemingly immune to crises.

Why did Morgan Stanley Dean Witter fly its international top brass to an urgently cobbled-together press conference in Madrid, five days after the news leaked of an acquisition so tiny in the grand scheme of its financials that the firm did not even have to report it publicly? Because the deal kicks off the European roll-out of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's global strategy.

When Frank Quattrone left Morgan Stanley in 1996, nearly everyone thought Morgan's technology franchise would go with him. But the Wall Street firm's edge in California wasn't blunted. Quattrone's magic has now faded, and all competitors bar one seem to be floundering. Michelle Celarier reports

Making up the rules in Brazil

Awards for Excellence 1997

In the course of the year, Morgan Stanley was involved in the largest merger ever. Novartis combined Swiss pharmaceuticals companies Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz to create $20 billion of market value on the first day of trading.

Competition drove white-shoe Morgan Stanley and blue-collar Dean Witter into a merger. Could other improbable matches be on the cards? Michelle Celarier assesses the implications of the union that took everyone by surprise.

This year, Euromoney's Awards for Excellence are broader in scope than ever before. A number of new categories have been introduced to reflect changes in the structure of international markets.