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The tough route to quality

"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.

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.

In Turkey business patriarchs never die, they simply fade away. In the wings their sons - rarely their daughters - prepare to take over, whether they're entrepreneurially inclined or not. But family-owned business heads are increasingly realizing that survival will depend on more formal structures. A few are even putting them in place. Metin Munir reports

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.

Leif Edvinsson, Skandia's vice president and corporate director of intellectual capital has won this year's Brain Trust Brain of the Year Award for his "new age" accounting methods. As world's leading expert on intellectual capital he managed to beat Bill Gates and Paul McCartney to the honour, which the Brain Trust describes as recognition of "superlative mental achievement".

Having spent his entire career at Smith Barney, Steven Black is no stranger to mergers and the blood on the floor they create. He cut his teeth on the 1992 merger of Shearson with Smith Barney, where he headed capital markets. In that position, after the merger, he took the axe to the fixed-income division.

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.

Dynamic exporters, versatile deal-makers, innovative marketers, Turkey has some impressive smaller companies. But they are starved of capital. With interest rates crippling and maturities short, they have financed growth from reserves. Now, as their need for capital grows, they need new options. Metin Munir reports on the problems and opportunities of Turkey's corporate sector, profiles some of its most promising companies and meets the men who want to finance its growth

"Its a lose-lose situation," says an employee at capital-market brokers Euro Brokers when asked about former colleague Cindy Buggins. "If I say something good, I'm helping competitors. If it's bad it looks like sour grapes."

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