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Ask Michael Byungju Kim about his formative experience as an investment banker and his mind jumps back to New York almost 12 years ago. He had just joined Goldman Sachs out of college and was watching while a senior partner flicked through his pitchbook. "The partner had red braces, a guy at his feet shining his shoes, and was talking to a client on the phone. Meanwhile he was making red marks all over my pitch and punching holes in my analysis and finding holes in my argument," recalls Kim.

Euro-gigantism

The virtual roundtable

The tough route to quality

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

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.

MOROCCO

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.

Weak and unreliable may be their image ­ but the best emerging-market banks are among the most robust in the world. Faced with hyperinflation, political instability and crippling credit crunches, they need to be tough to survive. Along the way they have turned into centres of excellence. Euromoney picked banks from widely differing regions to illustrate this winning streak. They are Brazil's Itau, Poland's Handlowy, Taiwan's Shanghai & Commercial Savings Bank, the UAE's Mashreq, South Africa's Investec and Ghana's Social Security Bank.