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Have you been wondering what, if anything, can cause bank stocks to fall? Last year's crisis managed to do it, but now it would appear to be little more than a temporary blip. And in the US at least, the first quarter of 1999 has been a profits bonanza for most of the banks, even for the likes of JP Morgan, which had been stuck in the return-on-equity doldrums for several years.

We know that the cloggies of ABN Amro and ING Barings are deadly rivals the world over and eat each other's client lists for breakfast. In Almaty, Kazakhstan, that competition extends to the bankers' leisure time. And these aren't even Dutchmen, they're Kazakhs. They issue mad challenges to each other: downhill racing, skeet shooting, computer warfare, it's all in a day's fun.

Middle East: Arab banks lay regional plans

Middle East: Arab banks lay regional plans

Information technology is the catch phrase of the moment. The issues surrounding Y2K, the introduction of the euro and spread of the internet are the bread and butter of an ever-expanding industry. They are also the daily bread of the key figures we invited to participate in our roundtable. What are the new challenges they face and how did they solve the old?

During the apartheid years and beyond corporate South Africa assembled unwieldy conglomerates to utilize domestic assets that could not be employed elsewhere. Now an economy that is opening up is going through a process of reshuffling and unbundling, with private-equity firms taking an increasingly important role. Richard Stovin-Bradford reports.

Why did Morgan Stanley Dean Witter decide in January to move the irrepressible Riccardo Pavoncelli from head of European debt capital markets to head its European media industry group.

French banking has arrived at a turning point. In the past the government would have stepped in to resolve the takeover battle between Société Générale, Paribas and Banque Nationale de Paris. But this time it looks likely that shareholders will determine who triumphs. Rebecca Bream reports.

M&A: Europe plays the takeover game

Former head of the European Monetary Institute Alexandre Lamfalussy has lent his name as chairman of EuroMTS, the euro benchmark government bond trading system that started trading on April 10, because he strongly believes in what it is trying to achieve: a liquid, efficient and transparent market in euro government bonds. The ultimate prize is the establishment of the euro as a reserve currency to match the dollar. "We've seen an accelerated move to a market-centric system from the bank-centric system that has tended to prevail in Europe," Lamfalussy said in London last month. "I have no doubt that a market-centric system is more efficient, but there's a question whether it is stable." The key to stability, he concludes - for the pricing of corporate as well as public debt - is a liquid and transparent government debt market.

The volume of money raised by European private equity funds continues to grow. Much of that money is flowing in the belief that continental Europe is close to developing the sort of buy-out and start-up culture which has long produced spectacular returns for venture capitalists in the US. In late March Apax Partners closed a €1.8 billion ($1.9 billion) pan-European fund. It has the distinction of being the largest private equity fund for Europe denominated in the new currency, but it joins an already large pool of funds, much of it denominated in dollars, which is dedicated for investment in private European companies.

In the 1980s, John Gutfreund was the "King of Wall Street". The soberly dressed former municipal bond trader would arrive at work each morning with a reputed readiness to "bite the ass off a bear".