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Before he left Turkey for the US to study civil engineering at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Husnu Ozyegin bought a notebook and started keeping his accounts.

Their mission is the same: to hunt down and execute mandates. They're all winners. Yet their tactics differ greatly, reflecting the varied cast of characters now reigning on Wall Street - tough New Yorkers, Cuban exiles, a laid-back Brazilian, an English lawyer, even a Senegalese photographer. Brian Caplen investigates the mix.

Foreign banks are trying to sell investment-banking services in Croatia but so far with limited success. Delays in state sell-offs and corporate restructuring aren't helping. By Charles Olivier.

Different ways to skin a cat

Different ways to skin a cat

George Jedlicka, managing director and chairman of Expandia Finance finds it hard to call Tomas Pardubicky, his colleague, Mr Pardubicky, as formality demands. It's understandable: Pardubicky is a fresh-faced 23-year-old who has been at Expandia just a year and confesses that he is still finishing a university degree. With a laugh, Jedlicka gives up, and reverts to the more familiar Tomas.

What's behind Lehman Brothers' decision to form an executive committee? The news this August that the heads of the major businesses would join chief executive Richard Fuld in a six-member committee came four years after Lehman split from its marriage with American Express Bank. Ostensibly, the team is being set up to formulate strategy.

Ukraine has been pushed to the brink by Russia's financial turmoil and the government's resistance to reform. The treasury bill market needs restructuring or there will be default, equity trading has ground to a standstill, and foreign investors are counting the days until they can get their money out of the country. Theodore Kim reports.

Following in Russia's footsteps?

The career of a Russian politician is rarely boring. The head of Russia's federal tax service from May - and for six days in August deputy prime minister in charge of debt restructuring - Boris Fyodorov was sacked along with the rest of Sergei Kiriyenko's government in August. He has had two previous stints as finance minister under Victor Chernomyrdin both of which ended with his sacking. But he may well be a player in whatever government emerges from Russia's political crisis - in mid-September he was back as first deputy prime minister in the provisional government of Victor Chernomyrdin and was credited with authoring the Plan for Economic Dictatorship - which amounted to a call for inflation. Like many other Russian leaders he also plays in the financial markets. Along with US banker Charles Ryan, he founded the United Financial Group, one of Moscow's leading investment banks. He spoke to Ronan Lyons in late August.

Is it a correction rather than a crisis? Perhaps, but consider this sobering list of 31 crises, prepared by Tim Bond, a strategist at Barclays Capital. His conclusion? "A western equity market crash will complete this litany of disasters ... since [equities] are mispriced by most yardsticks and since their fundamentals are daily worsening."

From the Silk Road, to Basingstoke, to Buenos Aires, the HSBC Group has grown into one of the most formidable names in international banking. Its recent spurt of acquisitions - which have made it the most profitable bank in the world three years running - were masterminded by the workaholic Scotsman William Purves, who gave up the role of chairman this year. His long-time deputy, John Bond, is today the taipan of a bancassurance group that grew out of the old HongkongBank founded in 1865 in a diversification strategy that is looking wiser by the day.