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Deals of the Year

Deals of the Year

Deals of the Year

Deals of the Year

With Argentina looking seriously at dollarizing its economy, other Latin American countries have rejected the idea - senior figures in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia say it's unsuitable for their countries and some analysts agree with them. One adds that even to dollarize Argentina is a project that would take years rather than months to implement.

Deals of the Year

Polish managers of a former state-owned company are receiving harsh lessons in capitalist reality. They are on the wrong end of the country's first hostile takeover bid, launched by a British firm with which they were in partnership talks less than a year ago. Worse, Poland's BIG Bank Gdanski, holder of 14% of the stock and a seat on the supervisory board, has not rallied to the target's defence and says it will sell at the best price.

A small but notable victory was celebrated at the end of January at the London Stock Exchange: a ceremony to mark the first euro depositary receipt to be listed on the exchange.

In a year in which deals of all shapes and sizes were pulled, plaudits go to all equity and bond issuers who were able to complete their deals at all. Some stars of the past - Asian project deals, Latin American corporate bonds and eastern European privatizations - barely made it to the finishing line. But one muscle-clad team of super-athletes swept the board in 1998. This was the year of the telecoms industry: from the stodgiest emerging-market monopoly to the most glamourous builder of fibre-optic networks, telecoms operators were everybody's favourite performers.

Leveraged syndicated lending has become hotly fought over in the past few years. Investment and commercial banks are keen to make their names in leveraged buy-outs and investment banks - long leaders on the advisory side as well as in bond and equity finance - seem to be closing the gap on commercial banks in senior lending as well. Firms pride themselves on being able to offer "one-stop shopping" - for loans, M&A advisory and bond underwriting - to their clients.

Whenever JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs in London manage to poach staff from each other, it usually leads to a bout of cheering and high-fives in the relevant office. No doubt much of the rivalry comes from the close proximity of their headquarters, which are less than five minutes' walk from each other near Blackfriars Bridge.

Turkey: Business must come before family