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Bonds and trust companies have become a popular means of local governments in China to finance themselves, following a regulatory-driven reduction in bank lending. But the risks held by both forms of capital-raising should not be considered the same.

In terms of broader market impact, however, no deal from CEE last year could compare with Sberbank’s $5.2 billion secondary equity placement. Although not the autumn’s only successful bank privatization – the Turkish government also achieved high levels of oversubscription for its sale of a TL4.5 billion ($2.5 billion) stake in Halkbank in November – the Sberbank offering gets the nod for single-handedly reviving the region’s moribund primary equity markets, paving the way for subsequent deals, such as Megafon’s $1.7 billion IPO.

Science fiction has no place in the real world of bank capital, but when one bank goes boldly beyond where any other bank has gone before with a CoCo under CRD IV, there is perhaps something of a whiff of the future about it.

UBS and Credit Suisse compete on everything in Switzerland – private banking, corporate accounts, retail clients, you name it.

The extended Private banking and wealth management survey results: Overall extended global results

Early last year, a heavy gloom had settled over most of the equity markets of the Asia Pacific region and ECM bankers were complaining to anyone who would listen about how bored they were, bemoaning choppy trading conditions for scaring companies away from doing deals. So when US insurer American International Group (AIG) raised $6 billion through the sale of its stake in AIA in March it provided the market with a much-needed reason to celebrate. With the benefit of hindsight, though, the block trade provided what turned out to be false hope of a wider equity market revival. The fact that it did not lead to a flurry of deal activity, however, does little to diminish the achievement in getting such a large deal away in the midst of multiple and often severe challenges. Although the deal priced at the bottom of its range, with a maximum 7% discount to the stock, it was a very big transaction – the second-largest block trade ever in Asia after China Mobile. And it provided a sense that if a particular deal was fundamentally sound, it could be priced and could fly in spite of volatility in the underlying markets. At the time of the trade, Dixit Joshi, head of global markets equity for Asia at Deutsche Bank, told Euromoney: "The fact we were able to do a $6 billion trade on an Asian underlying, and get it done robustly in a manner where the seller and the investors are happy, tells you about the depth of the capital markets here right now."

Supported by strong economic growth, China’s domestic private banking sector has been developing rapidly. But could a lack of education and mounting competition from overseas stall its progress?

Global capital markets underwent a remarkable recovery last year as bond and equity markets soared, creating a fertile dealmaking environment that few had foreseen at the start of the year. By the end, an impressive volume and variety of capital raisings had hit the markets, highlighting a voracious appetite for risk and complexity that bankers were only too happy to satisfy. Even in M&A.

Latin American issuers in the international debt capital markets enjoyed near-perfect conditions in 2012; total volumes hit another new record and many other records were set. The region’s credits continued to improve relatively and absolutely on those from developed markets, while issuers could access lower rates in the international market than were available domestically. There was heavy demand as international investors searched for yield outside their home and other developed markets. The result was that records tumbled. In total, $114.2 billion was raised by Latin American issuers in the international DCM markets. In February 2012, Petrobras broke the record for a single deal by an emerging markets issuer when it printed a total of $7 billion in four tranches. Total orders hit $25 billion. Pricing records were also set: a $1.35 billion issue by the Republic of Brazil paid the lowest-ever yield for the sovereign; in October Cielo issued the lowest-ever-yielding deal for a Brazilian corporate. In July, Codelco printed a deal with the lowest coupon and yield ever achieved by a LatAm issuer, including the Chilean sovereign, in the 10-year and 30-year sectors respectively. All these deals were of course highly successful and were skilfully led and executed, but with such favourable underlying market conditions it is hard to evaluate which were the standout transactions.

If Telefónica Deutschland’s €1.5 billion IPO in October last year gave hope to equity capital markets bankers that a resurgence in large European offerings was back on the cards, it was a smaller but perhaps more perfectly formed transaction in March that actually helped set a more ebullient tone.