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DrKW has embraced blogging in a big way. The fondness for internet opinion boards has spread from the bank’s IT staff to the rest of the bank, which now has about 300 internal web logs, used for sharing work ideas.

The Lehman Bond Show will now be available via podcast.

There was a message of serious intent in the choice of syndicate for Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa’s proposed flotation of its Italian 3G business. The message from the market was equally clear. Despite the best efforts of Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley to get the deal away, the US$7 billion price offered by investors was simply too unpalatable for an investment that has cost Hutchison between US$8 billion and US$9 billion. The IPO was pulled.

Arcelor, the Luxembourg-based steel company that has in the past preferred not to use bank advisers, is wheeling out the big guns to defend it against the €18.6 billion ($22.1 billion) hostile bid from Mittal Steel. It has just hired Morgan Stanley, which will join BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Merrill Lynch in advising it. Most of the main advisory firms are involved in the hostile bid on one side or the other. Mittal Steel is being advised by Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Société Générale and Citigroup.

It hasn’t been the easiest of starts to 2006 for Citigroup in Asia, with continuing integration challenges at its Korean banking acquisition and difficult negotiations with existing and future partners over its China strategy [see Citigroup fails to solve the China conundrum, this issue]. Now Citi’s China strategy will need to be reconsidered after the departures of chief rainmakers Francis Leung and Wei Christianson.

Focus is on the potential for corporate debt outperformance in 2006.

The US bank has made an expensive foray into China’s banking market, with little to show from two-and-a-half years’ work and millions of dollars spent.

It takes just one statistic to indicate what a force Citigroup is in Asia. The franchise (including Japan) is the 40th biggest financial institution in the world on a net income basis. Even excluding Japan, Citigroup does business in 16 countries in the region.

Invest with female mutual fund managers to save on trading costs

Fund managers' priorities for 2006

By Lawrence White