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Trading on indigestion

Edited by Rebecca Bream

Joining the Wall Street party

Who pushed NatWest?

Citigroup's latest acquisition

Who pushed NatWest?

Mannesmann has pitched into some speedy, expensive takeovers, but is still a takeover target. That's a symptom of the rush for change affecting nearly all German companies. For years investors complained that German managers were too slow and cautious; now many have become dangerously impulsive. By Laura Covill.

We live in a time when the necessity, desirability and inevitability of ever more bank mergers is simply taken for granted by bank executives, shareholders and regulators. The model of the ruthless cost-cutting merger, so firmly established in the US in the last seven years, has increasingly been adopted worldwide. As producing shareholder value becomes the prime motive of managers in national banking industries which for years have been overprotected by governments, overpopulated by too many unprofitable players, and inefficiently run, mergers - it is now taken for granted - are the only way to boost returns by cutting costs.

Edited by Rebecca Bream

Traditional active equity asset managers are alienating their institutional clients through underperfomance and high fees. Many pension funds and insurance companies in the US, UK and Europe are embracing passive index tracking, while others are devoting more attention to the rewards - and the risks - of hedge fund investing. The search is on for performance, or alpha, wherever it may be found. The whole asset management business may soon be transformed. Peter Lee reports.

A new breed of deal-makers

They may be a decade late, but Japan's banks are finally restructuring. The headline deals will create the world's two largest banks. An exclusive interview with Masao Nishimura, president of IBJ and a prime mover in the recent combination of IBJ with Fuji Bank and DKB, gives an insight into the thinking of Japan's financial elite. But, as Simon Brady reports, bad debts, low profitability and economic malaise will prevent even these new giants from becoming world leaders.