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HOW MANY DOLLARS FOR THE FAMILY NAME?

Zaiteku's most visible manifestations are the staggering daily volumes on the Tokyo foreign exchange market - up from an average of $2 billion in 1979 to $48 billion today.

Apart from the surge in new internation equity issues, growing innovation in the way stocks are packaged is the most striking feature of the current Euro-equity scene.

Bowater Industries has had long experience in the capital markets o the world. It issued ADRs in the US some 30 years ago and has been listed in Switzerland for about 20 years, for example. At a recent Euromoney conference in London, Geoffrey Jones, Bowater's treasurer, addressed some of the main questions that companies face when considering an international stock offering or listing. A number of constraining influences are inherent in the security itself The first 'is the domicile of the security or the paper itself. This is the starting point and the one to which the investor has to relate. Is he interested in a security denominated in a particular currency &om a particular country? He then has to decide - if he does invest in a foreign security - what other considerations must be taken into account when making that investment decision. One of' the most significant considerations is taxation.

The basic reason for the failure of- the recent $2.1 billion Flat share offering was that the world's investors simply were not interested in that amount of Fiat stock at the offering price, or anywhere near *It. Supply was far 'in excess of demand, causing the stock's market price to plunge.

When Du Pont listed its shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on October 2, it brought the number of foreign listings there to 34, more than three times the number listed just 15 months earlier. The rush to list in Tokyo, which began with Walt Disney Enterprises in June 1985, reflects interest in global, 24-hour trading, interest in thc Japanese market - companies hoping to penetrate markets there want the prestige a listing brings them - and interest in tapping the enormous pool of capital in 'Japanesc hands.

The last major barrier to a truly global capital market is crumbling. Decades after the emergence of an international marketplace for debt, equity financing is moving beyond national frontiers to link suppliers and users of share capital wherever they may be.

The simultaneous offering of shares in two or more countries raises all kinds of potential legal problems given the different regualtions and customs that often prevail iii different jurisdictions. But, so far, the lawyers and regulators have managed to reconcile these differences, enabling simultaneous international offcrings to take place smoothly.

SOUNDING OUT THE MARKET EXPERTS

Given that an international equity offering can cost a company as much as $250,000, flowback is more than just a disappointment. As Charles Ryder of Barclays de Zoete Wedd put it, "Flowback defeats the object of the exercise.

Canadian companies are issuing second and third-class paper. Canadian pension funds are buying it, often at inflated prices, because they have no option.

It looks as if Canadian authorities, heavily nagged by investment dealers, won't allow the competition that a de-regulated financial system would produce. And by protecting the puny investment dealers, the authorities might switch the whole Canadian securities industry into a siding.