Best European corporate:Vodafone AirTouch

Competition for telecom capital in Europe may be Werce, but Vodafone has taken the massive funding required to turn itself into Europe's pre-eminent mobile phone service provider in its stride with a series of jaw-dropping deals. Following a $14 billion bank Wnancing to support its acquisition of AirTouch, it stunned the markets in December by raising a total of e30 billion in the loan markets in the middle of its hostile takeover of Germany's Mannesmann. Not only did Vodafone executives face convincing their own shareholders and Mannesmann's reluctant shareholders to accept the takeover deal, they also had to bring in new and existing investors.