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Solid performers that buck the trend

The key to the gate of heaven, runs a Buddhist proverb, is also the key which could open the gate of hell. Buddha wasn't specifically talking about capital account convertibility when he made this statement. But he could have been.

Blue chips of the future

As the markets began to crumble around Wall Street executives in late August, former Salomon Brothers chairman and chief executive officer Deryck Maughan was in a good mood. "He seemed tickled pink that he had sold the firm a year earlier," says David Berry, an analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods, recalling a conversation with Maughan.

Chinese premier Zhu Rongji had been slowly drawing the net around the country's second biggest investment and trust company long before the outside world or indeed the company's own executives knew what was happening. He sent trusted aides to Guangdong where they worked quietly for months to flush out financial irregularities and clean up the scandal-ridden province. Their investigations led to the shutdown of Guangdong International Trust and Investment Company (Gitic).

Mohamed Taymour was in the top 0.1% of high-school students in Egypt the year he graduated. At the time, engineering was the fashionable next step up the educational ladder. So to please his father and gain useful mathematical skills Taymour opted to study industrial engineering instead of of commerce, already his true love.

Dawn raiders turn into gentlemen

Early last month, just after the downbeat IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington, a beleaguered group of once pre-eminent investors gathered at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York to discuss the prospects for their business. In such bleak days, these men and women, managers of some of the best-known funds invested in emerging-market debt and equity, had one overriding question to confront. Can emerging markets any longer be considered a viable asset class? Euromoney, which organized the conference, listened eagerly to the debate.

Dawn raiders turn into gentlemen

There have been four changes of government in Italy since 1991 but Mario Draghi has rarely seemed threatened as director general of the republic's treasury. While treasury minister Carlo Ciampi - who also appears certain to keep his post in the new administration of prime minister Massimo d'Alema - has concentrated on reducing Italy's budget deficit in readiness for the European single currency, Draghi has emerged as the most powerful figure behind wide-ranging financial reforms. He and Ciampi were also central to the planning and implementation of the "euro tax" and a major deficit reduction, which enabled Italy to meet the criteria for entry to the first round of Emu.

Investment bankers devoted hefty resources in 1997 and 1998 to promoting and gearing up for a European high-yield bond market. Following the Russian crisis, it collapsed. But proponents of European junk won't let a catastrophic market crash deter them. They argue that plummeting values could be the market's making. Spreads that have widened beyond all economic justification have finally made high yield sexy for the end-investor.

Advised by the World Bank, Poland is reforming its pension system. If successful, the new pension structure could become a model for Western Europe. Isabel Vallejo reports