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Asia's best companies 1999

Asia 100 1999 - Cleaning the hives

Asia 100 1999 - Cleaning the hives

Triple-A Dutch bank Rabobank wanted to build a flourishing international business in London. Things didn't go well, not least because the local staff were given too free a rein. A crackdown had to come. Now Rabo's taken a new tack, an alliance with Germany's DG Bank. It could be a fruitful match, but negotiations are protracted and the final arrangements far from settled. Laura Covill reports.

Hedging equity risk is now possible through the Athens Derivatives Exchange (Adex) with its futures contract based on the FTSE-ASE 20 Index covering blue chip stocks. Options and bond futures are on their way as are tie-ups with other European exchanges and regional indices. Adex chairman Panayotis Alexakis, a finance professor at Athens University and a business consultant, explains how he believes the market will develop. By Michael Peterson.

People: Mark Collier, Chairman and CEO, Investia

The US could be in for more than a few surprises this holiday season as it unwraps the Financial Modernization Act of 1999 - its latest gift from Congress. It's a big bill with lots of attachments. Principally, it allows banks to conduct securities and insurance business under the umbrella of new financial holding companies and boosts the power of the Federal Reserve as regulator of these. Another outcome may be to extend federal safety net protection to lending for pork-barrel projects. James Smalhout reports.

Bad vibes in Bishopsgate

Euromoney's latest brokers' poll of Asia's Best Companies took place against the backdrop of cyclical economic recovery accompanied by partial reform. India's best have come top in a number of sectors for the first time, while Korean and Hong Kong corporates also do well. After robust growth this year IT and other technology companies continue to top several country polls. Research by Andrew Newby and Alexa Marx.

For five decades, a small Milan bank has wielded power over Italian finance and industry. It has anointed and toppled bosses, fostered and blocked mergers, and defeated every attack on its influence. Its secretive machinations have infuriated supporters of transparent markets. In recent years, Mediobanca was presumed in decline as the world around it modernized. But in 1999 the firm struck back, steering the consolidation of Italian finance in its favour with help from its patriarch, Enrico Cuccia. Yet even in its year of triumph, Mediobanca faces a worsening internal split: between an old guard obsessed with power and intrigue, and a young investment-banking team who want to be less Cesare Borgia, more Goldman Sachs. Marcus Walker reports

Ringing up big numbers out east

People: Clare Marshall, former treasurer, Export Development Corporation