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Late last year the fledging market for syndicated loans to Russian banks witnessed its most ambitious and successful deal to date. Tokobank, in its first syndication, raised $85 million at a spread of 4H% over Libor. This was the first loan for a Russian bank at a spread below 5% and more than twice the size of any other such deal.

Why is it that some banks have such incredibly irritating music, the sort that gives you that brain-damaged feeling, while other banks and financial institutions have music that is much better. BT Business Systems, a subsidiary of British Telecom, must have had the same thing in mind when it conducted a recent survey of "music-on-hold".

After helping to put NatWest Markets on the map in his native Australia, Peter Hall was planning in 1994 on retiring from the investment banking business. Then 45 years old, he intended to devote his time to other interests, including Buddhism, which he defines as the "science of mind and consciousness". Although unable to take the week-long silent retreats that the study of Buddhism requires, he believes understanding its tenets have helped him a great deal. Far from the ego-driven mentality that seems to drive most investment bankers, Buddhism calls for a type of detachment. "It's about having a calm and receptive state of mind," explains Hall, who says he meditates for an hour a day.

Who is going to end up in control of Russia's leading industrial companies when the period of restructuring that has followed privatization finally draws to a close? More evidence emerged in December that it's likely to be the 46 financial-industrial groups (Figs) that have sprung up over the past three years. Last month two of them, Most Bank and Alfa Bank, came forward as the leading contenders for a large stake in a new holding company that will control the telephone sector. The Figs already link together over 60 banks and 20 other major financial institutions as well as 650 industrial giants including Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest nickel producer, and oil company Yukos.

Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and Baron David de Rothschild spoke to Brian Caplen about the style of the Rothschild businesses and the firm's restructuring plans.

Poll of Polls: The rise of DMG

Two groups of financial institutions are reviving the idea of trading derivatives linked to UK real-estate prices, five years after the first attempt to do this ended in disaster.

Can Rothschild reinvent itself?t

Why did Daiwa's European fixed-income new-issue wheel fall off in 1996? In a record year for new-issue volumes and secondary bond trading, Daiwa Europe has plummeted like a stone in the league tables finishing 19th, compared with seventh position in 1995. Had it not been for a World Bank issue late in the year targeted into Japan, Daiwa might even have finished behind Nikko Europe which would have been seen as a disaster at Daiwa's HQ. "There would have been bodies floating all over Tokyo Bay," comments a former Daiwa trader in London.

The Russians are here - at last

By March 1998 Europe's biggest futures exchanges will launch the first contracts to be settled in euros. Only the fittest will survive. London, Paris and Frankfurt are locked in combat to win the greatest prizes of all ­ those dominant futures contracts in short-term and medium-term interest rates. David Shirreff reports

The House of Rothschild doesn't look as solid as it used to. In a world of supermarket banks, the days of the corner shop may be numbered ­ even if it has the best name in the business. But Rothschild is fighting the trends with a major reorganization. Brian Caplen analyzes the plan and looks at the vexed issue of succession