To attract investors, smaller drugs developers need to show that they have products close to regulatory approval. But to reach that stage requires vast investments of high-risk capital. There are no easy ways to plug the gap but alliances with big pharma and forward sales of royalties can help. Mark Brown reports.

Argentina has changed the rules of the debt workout game by refusing to make good-faith efforts to pay its bondholders. And it is easy to understand the logic behind this move. A country that defaults on its external debt pays a huge price both politically and economically. Once that price is paid, however, it starts to recover. The cost of curing the default is large; the benefits are vague, and far in the future ? certainly at least one election cycle away.

Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, pictured below, surprised Anvar Saidenov when he appointed him as the new head of the central bank. But Saidenov has an enviable task in working out how to spend the new and growing wealth that the country is gaining from oil. Christopher Pala reports.

Just a few months ago Peru looked a shaky bet for international investors. Now bondholders can breathe a little easier. Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo still has the lowest popularity rating in Latin America and economic growth is slowing but Peru's macroeconomic fundamentals are solid and in keeping with IMF demands. It all looked very different in mid-January. Spreads on Peru's debt widened by more than 100 basis points as investors wondered whether Toledo's two-and-a-half-year-old government was on its way out amid corruption scandals. Four ministers lost their jobs in just three months and Toledo, who has a popularity rating of just 9%, struggled to distance himself from corruption scandals.

Agence France Trésor was nervous about becoming the first issuer of euro-denominated inflation-linked bonds but it is pleased with the results. Now its regular linker issuance schedule is helping to bring certainty to the development of the curve. Katie Martin reports

Investors in European high-yield bonds have fought hard for structural security. Issuers that bypass it will have to pay a premium.

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Asia's domestic wealth managers have to reassess their business models if they want to compete for the significant growth forecast for the market over the next three years.

www.breakingviews.com

Ferit Sahenk, general manager at Dogus Holdings, suffered from unlucky timing the last time he tried to sell a stake in Garanti Bank to Italy's Banca Intesa. It was September 2001. The due diligence had been done twice over, all loose ends were tied. The only thing that remained for closing was the deal approval of Intesa's board.

Never let it be said that running a global financial services organization leaves you bereft of a sense of humour. Talking to investors in Singapore in February, Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince was reiterating his stance on future acquisitions. As Prince has publicly explained, the bulk of the $50 billion pre-tax net income that he wants Citigroup to be making in five years' time will come from organic growth. There will be no repeat of the Citicorp/Travelers merger of 1998, which was truly a transforming event for both sides.

Having suffered significant losses when the technology bubble burst, Scandinavia's high-net-worth individuals have become more demanding about products and services they expect from their banks. And with the number of wealthy predicted to rise, banks are being spurred to tailor their offerings to suit these clients. Helen Avery reports.

A bull-market in Indian equities last year sparked spectacular growth in the country's equity derivatives market, which began trading four years ago. Monthly turnover in equity derivatives grew almost fourfold last year and in February this year it accounted for two-and-a-half times the spot cash market turnover on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).The average daily equity derivatives turnover in January touched Rs150 billion (more than $3 billion).

Anatoliy Shapovalov, deputy minister of finance of Ukraine and head of sovereign borrowing

The London office of Goldman Sachs is always a good place to spot slightly scary looking men in smart suits who are whispering down their sleeves. Usually these people are perfectly harmless traders. But one Monday morning in late March, even more of these characters than usual were to be found in the bank's swanky corridors. It wasn't "bring your secret service officer to work day", but because security had been beefed up for a visit from UK prime minister Tony Blair.

Delayed and inadequate reforms mean that Romania faces the prospect of failing to meet its 2007 deadline for entry into the EU. Guy Norton reports.

If Banca Intesa follows through on its interest in Garanti Bankasi, Turkey's banking market and the general economy could receive a big boost. David Judson reports.

CEO and founder, Lightyear Capital

The west should beware - it is about to be invaded by hordes from the east. They are not benefit-seeking immigrants but rather bargain-hunting entrepreneurs. Soon they might even be buying your bank. And in Turkey, local-born bankers with western skills are determined to drag their country into the modern capital markets era. Julian Evans profiles some of the leading eastern European entrepreneurs who are taking regional finance to a global level and Metin Munir looks at the pioneers seeking to pull Turkish banking out of stagnation.

When Coutts Bank decided to make the move from in-house investment management to external investment management, it did so in one year. "If you have a large gap to cross, you don't do it with two small steps," explains Andrew Hutton, the bank's head of investment management and group investment management.

Results of Euromoney's biggest ever credit research poll indicate that the development of relationships with continental European investors is crucial to success.