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The world's biggest privatization programme is being lined up in Brazil. Individual states and municipalities are joining the federal government in a sell-off jamboree. Proceeds could top $13 billion during the coming 12 months alone. Besides the money, the sales will bring in new management to help awaken the fabled sleeping giant, as Michael Marray reports

Quality and quantity now characterize the Eurosterling marketplace. A growth in corporate paper and Fannie Mae's issue ­ the first sterling global ­ are factors attracting global investors. Katherine Baxendale reports on the forces behind the rise of the sterling bond.

When Austria's coalition partners horse-traded the sale of Creditanstalt in January, it spelled the end of a venerable bank. But Gerhard Randa, chairman of predator Bank Austria, sees its absorption as a chance to put an Austrian bank into the big league. Not everyone agrees. And they don't like the way Austria's politicians stitched up a deal that had nothing to do with market forces and everything to do with Viennese power games. David Shirreff reports on a very Austrian privatization. Additional reporting by John McGrath.

DLJ is far from anyone's idea of a global investment banking powerhouse. But in important markets, such as high-yield debt or US equity underwriting, it has suddenly become a top player. Now the "the little firm that became big", as DLJers like to describe their bank, is moving overseas. Peter Lee reports.

"Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young." So Dr Johnson had it. In the case of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, an institution founded by Scots and still governed by one, it has grown to be the world's most profitable financial group. The unique international officer culture that has driven it – young men caught young, trained up, messed together, posted, reposted, in the bank for life and rarely back in the UK – will have to change, but it's bending and adapting rather than breaking. Steven Irvine reports on its fitness for the 21st century.

Equity boom or bust?

Bond markets face one of the biggest changes yet as bankers prepare for the coming of the euro and with it the creation of a huge, pan-European capital market. It's going to change the way a lot of borrowers raise capital and broaden the outlook of European investors. In the meantime, borrowers, particularly corporates, have been taking advantage of liquid markets, low interest rates, and investors' increasing appetite for risk. By Peter Lee

The world's top 20 borrowers raised more than $250 billion in the international markets last year. Euromoney talks to the top borrowers to find out how they plan to meet their funding requirements for this year

The governments of Asia have never trusted financial markets. They view stock exchanges as little better than Chinese gambling dens, and find it hard to comprehend that bond, foreign exchange and money markets are any less dominated by wild speculation. As a result, the regulatory and tax environment for financial markets in Asia is still rooted in the 1960s. Banking systems are rigged in a such a way that banks are forced to provide cheap finance for industry, and allowed little room to develop. The biggest Asian economies have progressed remarkably in technical and managerial competence in the past 20 years, but their financial industries remain appallingly backward.

Last year the international markets raised a record $113 billion in new equity and equity-linked instruments. Judging by rising secondary markets and heavy trading volumes in January, and an ambitious privatization calendar, investment bankers should be in for another busy year. But are hectic new issue schedules a recipe for mistakes? Peter Lee asks if the equity bonanza could end in disaster

This year, expect liquid loan markets, structured deals and credit derivatives, securitization, merger and acquisition fever, rapid privatization, and growing numbers of mtn programmes

As the fear of interest rate rises threatens virtually every market in the world from sovereign bonds to high-tech stocks to emerging market securities investors may no doubt be wondering where they can seek refuge.