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Allianz has a 100-year history of managing insurance assets. Internationalization of capital markets, fierce competition in asset management and the arrival of the euro have prompted the company to set up a third-party investment firm. Is Allianz Asset Management ready for the challenge ahead?

The Czech Republic's voucher privatization left old managements in control of companies still owned - now indirectly - by the state. Though not the only reason for the country's transformation from regional leader to laggard, the mishandled sale of state assets weighs heavy on the economy. Will the government get the sale of the big state-owned banks right? Rebecca Bream reports.

Last month the grain floor at the Chicago Board of Trade voted in a chairman after its own heart. To the big banks trading on the Chicago exchanges it looked like another setback for the modernization they crave. It's not just electronic trading that's at issue, but also cooperation - and possibly mergers - between Chicago's three derivatives exchanges that may prove vital to stave off competition.

Robert Sexton of Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn, Paris, explains how debt-equity swaps could help foreign creditors seeking recovery of Russian loans given the precedent of the US junk bond crisis

On the first working day of January 1999 big institutional investors throughout euroland will wake up to find that they are no longer limited to holding domestic equities. But how do you go about swapping a national stock portfolio for an Emu-wide one? You can't just call your broker and sell half your portfolio. There are derivatives - options on pan-European indices, equity swaps and reverse convertibles - that can provide exposure quickly and simply. Or you can speak to the specialist portfolio traders - the guys who have quietly spent the last couple of years installing computer systems to process huge order volumes.

As the founding member of one of the strongest and most successful global alliances in the airline industry, KLM is again the first to take leadership in the creation of a global airline system. Today, with a second global partnership in place with Alitalia and a firm business strategy focusing on the company's core activities, the Dutch airline looks set to consolidate its leading market position

The euro may cause glitches in some areas of the capital markets, but probably relatively few in swaps or derivatives, thanks to some smart thinking last year, says Christopher Stoakes

It has taken almost two decades of reform but the People's Bank of China (PBOC) believes 1999 will at last see it join the ranks of the world's independent central banks. The big revamp, long-awaited and finally announced towards the end of last year, involves replacing the bank's provincial-level structures with nine regional entities which will answer only to Beijing.

It was before the wave of strikes that hit France in December that I glided into the Gare du Nord on one of France's ultra-smooth, ultra-expensive (to the taxpayer, not the traveller) TGVs. I had two questions begging answers. First, would the Franco-German axis in Europe hold? And second, would France meet the Maastricht criteria for a European single currency by the end of 1997?

By the time you read this, the most important development in global finance in 50 years will have taken place. At vast expense to private sector banks and non-financial institutions - who have borne almost the entire burden of a task made unnecessarily difficult by the long-evident inability of Europe's governments to act pragnatically or in concert - the euro has been created. Sceptics are still concerned that the costs will far outweigh the benefits. But the apparent altruism of the private sector should tell them something.

Telecoms companies kept the capital markets afloat during the second half of 1998. They could play a similar role this year. Charles Olivier considers the industry's financing plans for 1999.

Poll of Polls: Warburg's excellently average performance