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If this is a bear market, then nobody told the Koreans. The country has been a source of a wide range of interesting and sometimes daring issuance over the last month. The star attraction has been the latest round of Korea Telecom's privatization, a US$2.24 billion ADS issue representing 55.5 million shares led jointly by UBS Warburg, Morgan Stanley and LG Securities. The sale was watched closely by many looking for signs of a change in attitude on the part of the Korean government towards privatizations, particularly following the twice-delayed Posco sale last year.

At the end of May, the listed property trust group, Mirvac Group, completed the largest commercial mortgage-backed securitization (CMBS) in Australia to date, issuing A$500 million in senior notes. The deal also stands as the largest single issue of rated debt raised by an Australian LPT. Led by ANZ and Westpac, Mirvac offered A$150 million (US$77.3 million) in fixed rate notes and A$350 million in floating rate notes, secured by the cash flows of 25 investment grade real estate assets, out of a diversified portfolio of 29. The real estate, valued at A$1.25 billion by Standard & Poor's (S&P), comprised approximately 60% commercial office buildings with the balance being a mix of retail, industrial and other commercial real estate, says Dennis Broit, Mirvac's finance director.

When GN Bajpai, chairman of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) announced a couple of months back that his company planned to acquire a bank, no one thought it necessary to keep a close tab on the move. Government-run companies are prone to make announcements that precede action by anything up to two or three years. That Bajpai will actually go ahead and strike what is India's biggest bank acquisition deal – with a government-run bank and probably within six weeks – therefore came as a surprise. It came as a particular jolt to five foreign insurance companies who had chosen Indian banks as partners to match LIC's huge distribution strengths in the marketplace. These insurers – Metlife of the US, Prudential Life and Standard Life of the UK, Dutch insurer ING Insurance and Cardif (an outfit of BNP Paribas Bank) of France – find themselves faced with not just LIC but Corporation Bank preparing to compete with them in bancassurance.

Arun Shourie, for many years one of India's most celebrated journalists, is minister for disinvestment. He has the job of turning India's flagging privatization programme into a success, with 27 businesses targeted for sale in the coming year. It's no easy task. Until this year only one sale had taken place – of bread company Modern Foods to Hindustan Lever, for US$70 million. The only transaction to go through this year – the sale of a majority stake in aluminium company Balco to Sterlite Industries – has been mired in controversy and union action. He spoke to Asiamoney.

What a difference a year makes. In June Telstra issued a comfortably subscribed Eu1.5 billion (US$1.2 billion) 10-year bond, upsized by half from its target size despite volatility in the rest of the telecoms sector. Not bad at all for an issuer that, just 12 months ago, was halving the size of a domestic deal and slashing the tenor of a euro transaction in the face of weak investor sentiment towards joint ventures with PCCW and the threat of rating downgrades. In fact, Telstra didn't so much approach the market as swagger to it this time around, enticing investors with the promise of a step-up coupon. Telstra had done this before in its last euro deal, offering investors a 50 basis point (bp) increase if the credit dropped to Baa1/BBB+, and step-up coupons have become commonplace in bond offerings from major telcos. But this time Telstra offered a two-step coupon promising investors an additional 25 bps even if its rating drops to A3/A-. Telstra is rated Aa3/A+ and its ratings are on stable outlook; it has no intention of being downgraded.

CLSA is different. Its business model is different; its ownership structure is different; its intelligent, even likeable, staff are different. But is different a good thing to be? In this era of global consolidation, and with a parent awaiting a takeover battle in France, the pressure mounts to sell this award-winning enterprise to a bigger name. By Matthew Montagu-Pollock.

Structuring derivatives for the newly liberalized B-share market is as much an art as a science. Given the market's short history and lack of comparables, textbook formulas give way to lateral thinking, discovers Pauline Loong.

The Asian private equity casino has closed its doors. Venture capitalists, no longer willing to risk all on outside bets, are returning to more conservative hold and invest strategies. Joy Lee reports.

China's regulators are moving quickly to ensure the domestic equity markets are up to scratch. Pauline Loong reports.

Innovation still exists in Asian project finance, but the market is much quieter than five years ago. But one country does stand out for its activity: Australia. Here are new and daring projects, interesting financings, major privatizations and a reasonable amount of controversy for good measure. By Dominic Jones and Chris Wright.

China's regulators are moving quickly to ensure the domestic equity markets are up to scratch. Pauline Loong reports.

We have all read research from bankers and academics on China, WTO and the equity markets. But what do the companies themselves think – those with direct experience of the equity markets in China, Hong Kong and overseas? To find out, Asiamoney and BNP Paribas Peregrine co-hosted a roundtable, held in Hong Kong but conducted in mandarin, entitled China Equity Markets – the Choice of Listing Avenues. Hosted by Pauline Loong, translated and compiled by Joy Lee.