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Goldman Sachs promotes itself as the company's friend, saying it prefers to advise clients on friendly acquisitions. So why has it pitched into three hostile takeovers this year? Not just because times and markets have changed. Michelle Celarier reports.

Awards for Excellence 1997

A former colleague of Richard Briance, the recently installed chief executive of WestLB's merchant banking arm, says: "West Merchant Bank were unbelievably lucky to get him. If I was him I'd have held out for a bigger job."

When foreign investment banks made $250 million on an erroneously priced Italian postal bond issue last year, the then chairman of Nomura's London office, Hitoshi Tonomura, was all set to follow CSFB's example and return Nomura's profit - thought to have been around $50 million.

Issuer: Snap

Exchange-traded derivatives now have their own standard-form agreement. But that's no excuse for leaving your brain at home. Christopher Stoakes reports.

The banking system is taking steps to shape up for European competition. But so far the changes are hardly sufficient in an industry plagued by overcapacity. Analysts argue that only mega-mergers will turn the tide. Philip Moore reports.

Credit is this year's buzzword in investment banking. Credit analysts, credit trading, credit products and credit spreads are the talk of managers around the world. The excitement is driven by solid economic factors such as European monetary union, improving credit fundamentals, low interest rates and the search for yield. But markets are also being talked up by some traders looking for the upside in bonds almost as if they were equities. Investors are mistaken if they believe that credit derivatives provide a hedge in the same way as interest rate swaps. Will it all end in tears? Peter Lee investigates.

Financial web sites are no longer little more than electronic advertisements. Investment banks want to offer their clients meaty services - pricing models, account-management tools, databases of trades, perhaps even real-time trading. Security is a declining problem but there are still bandwidth limitations to contend with. However, at least one bank reckons it can reduce its own costs if clients can get straight to data rather than deal with customer services. Andy Webb reports.

No surprises at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development after the departure of treasurer Mark Cutis to Nomura. His successor is Marcus Fedder, the 38-year-old former deputy and a member of the EBRD's only profit-maximizing team since 1991.

Over the past two years all eyes have been on the moves by Spanish banks into Latin America, with Banco Bilbao Vizcaya (BBV), Banco Santander and Banco Central Hispano (BCH) all piecing together high-profile regional networks. But suddenly a more powerful entrant has arrived on the scene, with HSBC Holdings buying up banks in a rapid succession of deals.

In the course of the year, Morgan Stanley was involved in the largest merger ever. Novartis combined Swiss pharmaceuticals companies Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz to create $20 billion of market value on the first day of trading.