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International investors in Polish conglomerate Elektrim have had a rollercoaster ride this year, as the company has striven to ditch a rag-bag of investments and concentrate on the ever popular telecoms market. The strong prospects for telecoms growth in Poland have attracted big foreign competitors and Elektrim has found itself shifting its alliances, first partnering with Deutsche Telekom in mobile telephony, then falling out with the German giant. In the process it came close to financial crisis. But new CEO Barbara Lundberg has struck a deal with Vivendi of France, that seems to have saved the day, for now. Ian Dawson reports

This year's poll of polls reveals a shuffling of the pack among the leading firms in the capital raising, trading, advisory and risk management worlds. A synthesis of all polls run by Euromoney in 1999 evaluates those firms which have real strength across the board.

Korea and Taiwan dominate Euromoney's latest ranking of Asian banks with 21 of the top 50 betweenthem. Australasia has been included in the list for the first time this year, with four Australian banks in the top 10. Japan's banks still suffer from the country's poor economic condition and their performance is improving only slowly,writes Rebecca Dobson

Should the bankers who for the last two years led Nasdaq's internet IPO bonanza, until the bubble burst in April, be held in any way to blame? The new issue houses don't think so. Although they put their name to many deals which have since flopped, they were midwives to many more that made punters rich. It was impossible to slow "borderline goofy" demand when the feeding frenzy was at its height. Internet IPOs became their own crazy asset class. However those frothy IPOs, which deprived many internet companies of committed core shareholders, may hasten their doom. Antony Currie reports