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Investors in Japan's privatized companies are getting worried about the government's attitude towards its former charges. Less than two years after thrashing out an agreement with a number of former state-owned companies about the extent of their pension liabilities, the government has issued a demand for a top-up payment. Several railway companies some already privatized, others slated for privatization have been asked to cough up ¥360 billion ($2.8 billion) by accepting an increase in their pre-privatization era pension obligations.

The taming of Creditanstalt

Brazil's investment banks are engaged in their own distribution build-up a mini-version of the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Salomon Smith Barney megamergers in the US. Banco Bozano Simonsen has purchased the retail bank Meridional in a privatization auction and Banco Pactual has bought Sistema, a Sao Paulo commercial bank which ran into trouble. Both banks say they are looking to make further purchases.

The tough route to quality

Issuer: Optimum Finance

Despite the upheaval in Asia, investment bankers expect a near-record number of privatizations and IPOs in Europe and the US this year. By Nigel Dudley

Developers used to put up offices for banks on a speculative basis. Now banks' requirements have become too specialized for this to work. In the late 1990s building boom in London, the trend is for the major houses to design their own. Philip Eade reports on the many projects underway.

Corporate-finance teams are preparing for some late nights in Bangkok as they try to sort out the mess surrounding Thailand's corporate Eurobond issuers. In a movement akin to plate spinning, bankers are working on delicate negotiations over existing defaults while keeping an eye out for the next hapless issuer about to hit the floor.

MOROCCO

Sinking under bad debts, stung by criticism of their poor profitability and shocked by the falling prestige of the ministry of finance, Japanese banks are talking about changing their way of doing things. But why should bankers risk damaging their careers, upsetting their customers ­ who are also their biggest shareholders ­ and putting their fellow citizens out of work by adopting western practices? One western analyst says if he was in charge of a big Japanese bank he wouldn't care about making a decent return on equity, so why should they? Steven Irvine reports.

Do you expect there to be further consolidation in the world banking industry ?

"I went into my boss's office to ask if I could have a new computer. He said 'no and, by the way, you've been made redundant'." This was the rather typical experience of a junior equity analyst at Jardine Fleming in the new Hong Kong.