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Gartmore's Japanese long/short equity AlphaGen fund was one of the firm's top performers last year despite market conditions that hampered the strategy. The US dollar and yen classes returned 17.1% and 15.9% for the full year 2003.

Reform is on the agenda for Morocco, although the king still wields comprehensive power. New openings are being sought to rebalance an economy dependent on tourism and to overcome stubbornly high unemployment. Rupert Wright reports.

Equity capital markets bankers agree that accelerated transactions and bought deals are here to stay. Such deals dominated ECM issuance for most of 2003, with fully bought deals accounting for 54% of all block trades. This, however, obscures the fact that many accelerated block trades that are not officially bought deals have aggressive backstop arrangements that make them little different to those officially classed as risk trades. Clients in need of cash like them because the discounts are tighter, sometimes substantially so. This is despite the fact that in every quarter last year they had substantially worse after-market performance.

In the Islamic awards section in January we mis-printed the name of Commerce International Merchant Bankers. Apologies.

The Chinese year of the monkey looks auspicious, says CLSA's self-styled wicked sorcerer of the east, Kenny Lau.

Investment bankers predict a healthy flow of equity capital markets business this year as stock markets continue the run-up that began last spring. If the secondary markets' tone remains strong, investors may be tempted to buy new issues. But they should remain suspicious over whose interests the investment banks are serving: theirs as investors, or those of issuers' of stock who grant mandates and fees to the banks.

Using convertible unsecured loan stock (Culs) along with cash could help different types of deals break the impasse between existing shareholders and bidders.

Australia's mutual fund industry is set for a bonanza over the next decade, with assets under management forecast to reach a total of US$1.32 trillion by 2015.

Investors' enduring interest in hedge funds was apparent from record inflows last year. But outperformance of cash equities was already becoming difficult to achieve. This year things could get even tougher for hedge funds unless they can find ways to adapt to a bull market. Julie Dalla-Costa reports.

The European equity-linked market generated over e9 billion in convertible redemptions in January, which is almost a third of what is expected in maturities and puts through the whole of 2004.

With its standardized documents boosting efficiency and liquidity in European investment-grade lending, the Loan Market Association (LMA) now wants to repeat the trick in the burgeoning leveraged market.

A $5 billion loan is not to be dismissed lightly in a country where foreign investment is running at just $1 billion a year. But the mystery benefactor is a company whose name rings no bells and whose principal investors have yet to be identified. It could only happen in Turkey. Metin Munir reports.