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Sicily is famous all over the world for many reasons. Films such as The Godfather and novels such as The Leopard have brought fame to the Italian island, as well as the worldwide criminal organization known as the Mafia. But its name does not crop up very often in the financial news.

The devaluation of the Brazilian real has kept emerging markets at the top of bankers' and regulators' priority lists. As the crisis struck, the Malaysian second finance minister was on a tour of Europe designed to gather support for the country's controversial approach - an approach the minister insisted was working and would be continued indefinitely. More than a year on from the start of the crisis, there is still no consensus on what policies are appropriate for these troubled countries.

In a year in which deals of all shapes and sizes were pulled, plaudits go to all equity and bond issuers who were able to complete their deals at all. Some stars of the past - Asian project deals, Latin American corporate bonds and eastern European privatizations - barely made it to the finishing line. But one muscle-clad team of super-athletes swept the board in 1998. This was the year of the telecoms industry: from the stodgiest emerging-market monopoly to the most glamourous builder of fibre-optic networks, telecoms operators were everybody's favourite performers.

Partly by luck, but as much because it was well structured, well organized and guaranteed to run to deadline, Brazil's auction of the state's controlling stake in telecoms provider Telebrás was a roaring success. Michael Peterson reports on why it came out as Euromoney's privatization of the year. Also, Brian Caplen looks at other notable Latin American deals and deal-makers of the year.

Deals of the Year

International Equities: Issue now - before the next crisis

Deals of the Year

His punishing schedule was that of a corporate financier rather than a central banker. In five years as head of the Bundesbank's international relations, Helmut Schieber took an average 10 foreign trips a month to attend summits with bankers, finance ministers and regulators. "Yes, it was depressing," says Schieber of the ceaseless round of aircraft seats, chauffeured cars and windowless conference rooms.

Polish managers of a former state-owned company are receiving harsh lessons in capitalist reality. They are on the wrong end of the country's first hostile takeover bid, launched by a British firm with which they were in partnership talks less than a year ago. Worse, Poland's BIG Bank Gdanski, holder of 14% of the stock and a seat on the supervisory board, has not rallied to the target's defence and says it will sell at the best price.

It was a big-bang conversion with no modern precedent. Politicians had created monetary union; now it was up to banks to make it work. In Frankfurt, arguably the finance capital of euroland, the changeover was mostly a success. But there were some hairy moments and arguments over who caused a cross-border payments jam. Marcus Walker reports.

Europe's high-yield market was amongst the hardest hit by the Russian crisis. But as Rebecca Bream reports, the reasons for the market's bloom in early 1998 still hold good. Investors need greater yield and corporate restructuring is expanding the pool of potential issuers.

Among the candidates to blame for starting the emerging-markets crisis are leveraged hedge funds, foreign investorpanic, bad IMF advice, overvalued currencies and crony capitalism. A new scapegoat is the reckless Asian corporate, which overborrowed cheap dollars and expanded too fast: its bad risk management scuppered entire economies. Isn't this latest thinking just a plot by the World Bank to impose laisser-faire capitalism on the whole world? Brian Caplen reports.