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Two groups of financial institutions are reviving the idea of trading derivatives linked to UK real-estate prices, five years after the first attempt to do this ended in disaster.

In which Ingersoll and Komarovsky are sent on a course to learn that "ethics" is not just a county to the east of London.

The near-collapse of Agrobanka, the Czech Republic's fifth-ranked bank, has highlighted the aggressive activities of investment companies such as Pavel Tykac's Motoinvest. Philip Eade reports on the elements of the crisis and the chances that lessons have been learnt from it

Boca Juniors, Argentina's most famous football club, is to break with its working-class traditions by becoming the first team to list on the local stock market. The club, supported by an estimated half of Argentina's fanatical football fans, last month won authorization from the Buenos Aires stock exchange to launch the Boca Juniors Closed Common Fund, with the aim of raising $20 million to buy a much-needed batch of new players.

Diethart Breipohl is a modest man. But as finance director of the Allianz insurance group he presides over Dm320 billion of investments, probably the biggest portfolio in Europe. That includes significant stakes in Germany's blue-chip firms, suggesting to some that Allianz is "the spider in the web" of corporate Germany.

Deutsche Morgan Grenfell makes waves in the 1996 poll of polls with a strong performance in underwriting, trading and advisory work. Other names to note for 1997 include the newly formed Chase, the highest climber, as well as ABN Amro and Nomura Securities, all of which move confidently up the ranking. By Rebecca Dobson.

The House of Rothschild doesn't look as solid as it used to. In a world of supermarket banks, the days of the corner shop may be numbered ­ even if it has the best name in the business. But Rothschild is fighting the trends with a major reorganization. Brian Caplen analyzes the plan and looks at the vexed issue of succession

So it's goodbye to the name of Strauss Turnbull. The call to the knacker's yard from the uncompromising French bosses at Société Générale surprised no-one. Relationships between the two house had long been fraught. SocGen probably thought that Strauss Turnbull was a better firm than it proved to be. When the French found out that it had been sold a pup it was only a matter of time before the tumbrels were rolled out.

Why did Daiwa's European fixed-income new-issue wheel fall off in 1996? In a record year for new-issue volumes and secondary bond trading, Daiwa Europe has plummeted like a stone in the league tables finishing 19th, compared with seventh position in 1995. Had it not been for a World Bank issue late in the year targeted into Japan, Daiwa might even have finished behind Nikko Europe which would have been seen as a disaster at Daiwa's HQ. "There would have been bodies floating all over Tokyo Bay," comments a former Daiwa trader in London.

The IFC's Minati Misra is not prone to giving the dealers on her MTN programme an easy time. With a reputation as one of the market's most sophisticated borrowers, she is far from passive. Steven Irvine spent two days by her desk in Washington listening as she charmed and cajoled her intermediaries.

Poll of Polls: The rise of DMG

US banks still go through contortions to get round the crumbling Glass-Steagall Act, which limits their securities business. But action by the US Federal Reserve will reduce some of the balance-sheet gymnastics required. It will bring one dramatic step nearer the day when banks and securities firms might merge. Michelle Celarier reports