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Borrowers: Borrowers start to play a strategic game

The use of credit derivatives is set to expand dramatically. Christopher Stoakes explains some of the legal pitfalls.

First there were commemorative watches, then there were commemorative bottles of beer - called Red Dawn. Now the Bank of England has joined the crush to make a buck out of Hong Kong's handover to China by printing special £5 notes.

Private investigator Kroll Associates has worked hard to restore its reputation following allegations in the early 1990s that its subcontractors employed unsavoury tactics to uncover company information. It has also adapted well to changing business patterns. Now, though, it faces competition from big accounting firms. Public ownership may be the answer, but could its absorption into US insurance information services company Equifax dull its investigative edge or turn it into big brother? Michelle Celarier reports.

More evidence of Dresdner Bank's extraordinary preference for the long view comes in an interview given to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung by the bank's chief executive, Jürgen Sarrazin.

Governments in emerging markets have spent $250 billion bailing out banks in the past decade. How can the industrial countries help stop the haemorrhage and any knock-on into their own markets? By imposing worldwide rules for better supervision, building markets and institutions in their own image, or by letting free markets do their work? James Smalhout reports.

"The emergence of the German public-sector borrowers has probably been the most important single feature of the international primary debt capital markets during the 1990s," says the head of syndication at one of the bulge-bracket US investment banks. Few people would argue with that.

US interest rate rises are an ever-present threat to Latin American bonds, but market bulls reckon such rises won't be as destructive as they were in 1994. Sovereign borrowing is easing, privatization is under way, rating upgrades of some corporates have left more room for lesser names and securitization is taking off. So corporates look likely to capture a much bigger market share. Michael Marray reports

It was a twist of fate. In the same month as Jardine Fleming sacked one of its senior executives for being involved in gun-running for rebels in Papua New Guinea, another man with miltary ties was airing his views on the similarities of banking and soldiering in Fleming's monthly research reports.

Hillboot Intergalactic PLC,

Coming to a screen near you soon, the all-singing, all-dancing dealing room. Gone are the days when dealers shied away from the prying gaze of television cameras.

Corporate risk management is advancing dramatically because of computer power, communications, the Internet, and the value-at-risk (VAR) concept borrowed from banks. Several companies are leading the charge, and attempting to quantify risks that aren't just financial. But can that help the treasurer do his job? By David Shirreff.