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Edited by Peter Lee

A diamond bubble is forming, so slowly that people haven't noticed it yet. When they do, prepare for a crash. The crash will come when a dazzled public recognizes the precious jewel for what it is ­ a lump of carbon that can be built by the ton in laboratories. Very soon the predicted volume of future mass production will affect today's price, which is kept artificially high and stable by a cartel. Now is the time to go short, if only you could, argues Mark White

It seems a thankless task. Arrangers of Euro medium-term note programmes are expected to work on a mandate for months, be the butt of dealers' gripes ­ but then don't get paid a cent. So why do they bother? Antony Currie finds out

Wafer-thin margins and favourable conditions have tempted many borrowers to refinance in the syndicated loan market. But the cycle may now be shifting a gear. Much of the refinancing is done and lenders are venturing lower down the credit rankings. They may get stung. Christopher Spink reports

Komarovsky falls helplessly into a sinister web of deadly intrigue and in-flight food

Salle d'Attentes Deuxième Classe, Gare de Trou-sous-Mer, Pas de Calais ou d'Argent, France

The New Zealand government is withdrawing from the debt market ­ it plans to have zero net foreign debt by the end of this year. Opportunities for foreign investors are therefore focusing on newly privatized companies, government-owned commercial corporations and even some yet to be deregulated industries. By Albert Smith

The trend towards consolidation and globalization is continuing, according to InterSec's ranking of the top 250 asset management firms outside the US. However, it also indicates that this will slow in the future as the difficulties of implementing economies of scale become more and more apparent. Jim Sirius reports

François Narmon hopes to make Crédit Communal de Belgique one of the world's largest lenders to municipalities, merging with France's Crédit Local to that end. But the actions of Belgium's second-biggest bank could trigger another Belgian merger. The key is Crédit Communal's shareholding in Banque Bruxelles Lambert. Steven Irvine reports

Sophie Röell

As more and more investment dollars flow into Asia, competition for commissions is becoming more intense. For integrated investment banks the prospect of turning research expertise into fat underwriting fees is enticing, but that is not the only business strategy being pursued by the top firms in the 1996 Asian brokers survey. Andrew Capon reports

If you are a big bank on the hunt for smaller fish to swallow up, where do you look? Banks that show no potential for creativity or filling gaps in market coverage are unlikely to figure as your acquisition targets. That's particularly true if they are going through a bad patch. But your prey may turn out to be on the hunt themselves. Banks that have sharpened up by hauling themselves out of disaster are often as likely to be potential acquirers as acquisitions. The same is true of those that have been long-term successes because of imaginative and efficient exploitation of product or regional niches. Then there are the banks that look too big to be acquired but seem uncertain or cautious about punching their weight. We look here at eight European banks with plenty to shout about but at least a hint of ambiguity about where they are heading. Brian Caplen, Laura Covill, Desmond Crowley, Philip Moore, Nick Kochan and Jules Stewart report