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Daniel Vasella has had a tough time as chief executive of life sciences company Novartis, with a collapse in its agribusiness, management turmoil in pharmaceuticals and weak performance in the US. But he's restructured the company and now hopes new drugs can deliver growth.

The City of London took to fancy dress on ice recently to raise funds for Sense, the charity working with deafblind people. On the eve of Halloween, bankers, lawyers, and accountants competed in speed-skating round the Broadgate rink and - even more keenly - for best costume prize. Assorted vampires, skeletons and ghosts helped to raise over £30,000.

Author: Avinash Persaud

Best consortium site for bond trading

If Steve Pellatier has his way, everyone will be able to invest in pre-IPO companies. Or at least everyone who meets the requirements laid down by regulators. Pellatier is the CEO of Offroad Capital, which is trying to open the private equity market to individuals and smaller institutions, although Pellatier prefers the term private securities, as he doesn't want to limit opportunities purely to equities. He does not skimp on ambition and wants Offroad Capital to be "the predominant global private securities marketplace by using the internet to bring together investors, issuers and intermediaries".

Desperate times demand desperate measures. But the decision by politically embattled Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid to shore up support by allowing indebted conglomerates to get off the hook could easily backfire.

Best retail internet bank

For a horse-racing enthusiast like Martyn Arbib, the sale of Perpetual, his pride and joy, will prompt mixed feelings.

Collectively the world’s leading commercial and investment banks are making rather a mess of transferring parts of their businesses to the internet. Many are committing fundamental business mistakes they would never allow in their traditional operations. Leadership of internet initiatives is often confused, as are their objectives. A few banks may have built good sites for specific businesses but none has come close to putting together a complete set of internet offerings. So say the editors and journalists at euromoney.com who put together this year’s inaugural awards for the best sites in wholesale finance. Matt Ball reports

India has hit on a not-so-novel idea to shield an economy made vulnerable by high international oil prices. The government has got State Bank of India, the country's largest bank, to sell Five-year foreign currency deposits to expatriate Indians to help tackle a worsening balance of payments situation.

Demand for structured medium-term notes, particularly equity linked, has exploded over the past two years. Yet it is retail buyers rather than sophisticated institutional investors who are purchasing these complex products. It’s not just the investor profile that has changed. The route map for the origination and distribution of structured debt is being redrawn too. In the heart of euroland some surprising new players and alliances have emerged to service structured debt’s most important new client: the man on the street. Mike Tims reports

The traffic may have eased a little in Bangkok since the crash, but there is still gridlock in Thailand's banking system.