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The Dutch B2B group pulls off a large restructuring to survive a liquidity crunch amid heavy trading of its debt by US hedge funds.

Selling off Germany's autobahns and lamp posts are two of the more bizarre proposals of a government desperate to raise cash to bail out an ailing economy. The irony is that while there is broad agreement that changes are needed, the country's consensus system of politics is impeding progress. Ben Aris reports.

Amid the roll-out of China's vast privatization programme international attention is focused on the transfers of big state-owned enterprises. But the ownership of thousands of other smaller operations is being changed via hundreds of small, local asset exchanges. Regulation of these is being beefed up. Chris Leahy reports.

President Vladimir Putin surprised everyone with his appointment of unknown technocrat Mikhail Fradkov to replace sacked prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov. Fradkov is Russia's envoy to the EU, based in Brussels. Before this, he was director of the tax police. In many ways, he is a compromise candidate between the two Kremlin factions of the security services and the liberal reformers. He has served in the Russian security council, giving him links to the former, and also served in Yegor Gaidar's reformist government in the early 1990s, giving him some credibility with the latter group. He is not well-known but regarded as a competent bureaucrat who will, above all, be loyal to Putin.

On February 25, the Bahrain Monetary Agency went on the road to sell a $250 million sukuk – Bahrain's first international Islamic bond. Bahrain's bond follows issues by Qatar and Malaysia. And the news that Citigroup is working with the German state of Saxony-Anhalt on an Islamic bond suggests that, as well as being used to boost the Islamic capital markets, sukuks can be commercially attractive to a broad audience.

Standing in his office in Raffeisen's headquarters in Vienna, RZB International's chairman Herbert Stepic points with pride to a large world map dotted with small RZB flags showing the bank's outlets around the globe, including branches in China, Singapore and New York, and recently-opened subsidiaries in Albania and Belarus. His office is more like that of a Cecil Rhodes-type imperial pioneer than a banker, filled as it is with African sculptures and Chinese tapestries.

India's bond and equity markets spurted into action last month as the government announced over $3 billion-worth of sales of shares in six companies. Indian companies and banks will also tap the market for another $2 billion, about half of which will be foreign currency debt. In addition, the Asian Development Bank closed a $110 million rupee bond, the first local currency bond by a multilateral bank.

RediPlus didn't get much of a mention at the time of the acquisition of Spear Leeds Kellogg by Goldman Sachs. Most of the focus was either on the price, initially $6.5 billion, or on what seemed to be an about-face by the investment bank. SLK was best known as a specialist, the market maker on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Goldman had been a prolific investors in its nemesis, the electronic trading platforms, and seemed to regard the specialist model as unsustainable.

The rugby bandwagon continues to roll. Latest to declare their new love of the game are fund managers Gartmore. The recipient of Gartmore's contribution is that venerable rugby institution the Barbarians. The club, founded in 1890, is most widely lauded for its 1973 match against the New Zealand All Blacks in which Gareth Edwards scored arguably the greatest ever try.

The world's largest steel company's M&A team is as big as an investment bank's steel sector corporate finance division. Arcelor reckons, though, that its team's superior sector knowledge makes it more effective at doing deals that enhance core assets, deliver synergies and boost shareholder value. Kathryn Tully reports.

With just over a year left before they lose the state guarantees that they rely upon for cheap financing, several German Landesbanken still do not have a clear strategy. Investors have reacted by rewarding those that have communicated a strong business plan. Katie Martin reports.

Head of sports, media and professional client groups, Coutts