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With consolidation on their minds, ambitious investment banks are picking their partners. No-one expects SBC-UBS to be the last big merger. Now Euromoney gives you the opportunity to pick your own dream team of banks which are hot in the merger stakes. Rules of the first ever fantasy bank M&A competition are as follows:

Was your bonus smaller than expected this year? Feeling unappreciated at work? Do you think you can write an insightful essay on the world of international finance? Not only will you be honouring the esteemed Jacques de Larosière, but the top prize is $10,000.

Amid speculation about how emerging markets specialist Caspian Securities is faring, a new chief executive is to replace its founder, Chistopher Heath.

Issuers: Pub chains

Simon Brady becomes editor of Euromoney from next month. He succeeds Garry Evans who has worked for the journal for the last 12 years, eight of them as editor, and who has moved to Tokyo to fulfil an early ambition to work in Japan. Evans became a great editor of Euromoney, swinging its editorial into the different mainstreams of international finance with growing dexterity and judgement, setting a pace that impressed professionals in markets across the world. He will be missed.

Bargain hunters spread to Europe

The European Central Bank's governing council might not be meeting yet, but Deutsche Bank - who else? - has the inside track. For about six months its leading economists in 10 locations have been acting out a "shadow" ECB council which, in a monthly conference call, sets a shadow interest-rate policy for the euro.

European corporates may enthusiastically be embracing the idea of shareholder value, but does this create value for bond investors? This was a question that investors were keen to ask Diageo - the new company created in last year's £9.75 billion ($16.25 billion) merger of Guinness and GrandMet - during its roadshows for a debut $500 million Eurobond. As the trend for European corporate M&A continues, debt investors will increasingly find that recognized names are absorbed into new companies with unfamiliar credit stories. That puts an emphasis on both borrowers and lead managers to explain developments to investors. The trend of hiring highly creative and expensive consultants to come up with new and apparently meaningless company names, scarcely helps.

This is the risk they won't talk about in Brussels, Bonn or Paris - that monetary union, once entered into, goes horribly wrong, scuppering the SS Euro. Prudent financial management demands that the risk of failure, exit by one country or dissolution should be considered. Research suggests it isn't negligible and that its consequences for financial contracts and exposures will be devastating. David Shirreff reports.

Last month, Kendrick Wilson, a vice-chairman of Lazard Freres in New York and one of the firm's most senior bankers, left to join Goldman Sachs. Goldman now boasts the strongest line-up of all financial-institutions groups in the US. Wilson, and Goldman's head of FIG, Christopher Flowers, are the two biggest names in the M&A advisory business. Wilson worked on several of last year's tie-ups between commercial and investment banks and was also involved behind the scenes in one of the biggest deals that got away, representing American Express in talks with Citicorp

Business travel poll 1998: A hard landing in Asia

If you want a loan from a Turkish state-owned bank, don't talk to its manager. The man who makes the real decisions is a cabinet minister. As Metin Munir reports, this set-up is crippling Turkey's banking system and distorting its economy, but there is little political will to change things