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Poll of Polls: The rise of DMG

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.

Poll of Polls: The rise of DMG

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.

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.

After months of delays, the Mexican privatization progamme has sprung back into life. In December, the government raised $1.8 billion from the sale of its northeastern railway line, by far its largest privatization deal since the devaluation of the peso in late 1994. Congress has also dropped its opposition to the sale to foreign investors of a 49% stake in the country's down-stream petrochemicals industry, raising hopes that privatization will speed up in 1997.

The Russians are here - at last

In their desire to get a head start over each other in India, Wall Street investment banks have forged joint ventures with local partners. Three US banks JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs have adopted this strategy. Surprisingly, all three have agreed to remain minority shareholders in the ventures even though the law permits them a majority holding. Pressures may be building, though, for the US banks to buy out their local partners.

It's not often you get a morality tale in the bond markets. But when an obscure line of postal bonds grabbed the attention of traders in London, the conflict of interest that haunts all investment banks came horribly alive. One man decided that his bank's relationship mattered more than short-term gain, and he gave his traders' profits back. Was this the action of a saint, or just good business sense? Steven Irvine reports.

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.

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.

After helping to put NatWest Markets on the map in his native Australia, Peter Hall was planning in 1994 on retiring from the investment banking business. Then 45 years old, he intended to devote his time to other interests, including Buddhism, which he defines as the "science of mind and consciousness". Although unable to take the week-long silent retreats that the study of Buddhism requires, he believes understanding its tenets have helped him a great deal. Far from the ego-driven mentality that seems to drive most investment bankers, Buddhism calls for a type of detachment. "It's about having a calm and receptive state of mind," explains Hall, who says he meditates for an hour a day.