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Walter Schubert has set himself a big goal - to take Wall Street onto the net and gays out of the closet. Schubert, the first openly gay member of the New York Stock Exchange, aims to empower the gay and lesbian community financially and spiritually with his Gay Financial Network (www.gfn.com).

Some issuers seem to have a natural talent for tripping up syndicate banks. In this respect few borrowers rival Germany's Länder, who recently issued their fifth joint Eurobond. No Länder-Jumbo has ever been a notable success, but this deal seems to have made everyone a loser.

Hans-Joerg Rudloff, doyen of the Euromarket, has positioned himself perfectly for next year's skyburst of activity in euro debt financing.

Hi-tech comes to Europe

After spending four months trying to hammer out project-finance strategy at the new UBS/SBC, Chuck Zabriskie, global head of the business at UBS, thought he'd finally struck a deal with the SBC-dominated board. He had, colleagues say, managed to retain his business structures and staff numbers, even though SBC pulled out of project finance three years ago. It looked like a small victory for the demoralized UBS footsoldiers.

The Asian Development Bank still has the best balance-sheet of the major multilaterals - on paper. But turmoil in the region and slowness by its major shareholders to pump in fresh capital could change the picture. Steven Irvine reports.

Bank atlas 1998

Bank atlas 1998

Greeks have a high tolerance of political risk, which should give them an edge when competing for business with their volatile neighbours. Hoping to enter monetary union in the second wave, Greece is set become a powerhouse in "its natural backyard". Rebecca Bream reports.

Japan's stock market has problems enough but the country's convertible bond market faces challenges of historic proportions. Once a premier source of funds for capital-hungry Japanese companies, the market has shrunk to a mere capital-markets sideshow, with the market index staggering ever downwards. Now the sector is returning to unwelcome prominence. The market faces colossal redemptions in fiscal 1998, amounting to ¥4 trillion ($30 billion). Efforts by some lowly rated issuers to scrape together the necessary funds to repay maturing convertibles - a burden they never expected - may become quite desperate, since these companies are already feeling the effects of a Japanese credit crunch.

European investors are discovering what their US counterparts have known for years. Technology companies can provide spectacular returns. Venture capitalists and small-cap stock markets are working hard to accommodate the sector. Meanwhile, US investment banks, which honed their hi-tech skills financing the development of Silicon Valley, are making a big push across the Atlantic. Brian Bollen reports.

Bank atlas 1998