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The Singapore government has gone to great lengths to develop the country's bond market – in the belief that it will contribute to the longer-term liberalization of its financial markets. But there are obstacles to be overcome before the island-state's bond market is considered an attractive regional source of funds. By Fiona Haddock.

Headhunters wield increasing power over the region's financial institutions – and our own careers. Asiamoney's first headhunters poll reveals which firms and individuals are considered to be the best in the business, and whether our respondents are happy with the services they offer. By Matthew Montagu-Pollock, Olivia Chow and Robert Law.

Lawyer David Gerald took justice into his own hands in 1999 when Malaysia froze US$3.8 billion worth of shares. And he won. A year later he discusses the legacy of that action over lunch with Asiamoney. By Fiona Haddock

For three years he battled to implement a restructuring plan at Thai Petrochemical Industry, the country's biggest and most recalcitrant corporate debtor. Now following a landmark ruling from the Central Bankruptcy Court he has seized control of the corporation on behalf of creditors. Can Anthony Norman pull off the most important restructuring case in Thailand's recent corporate history? By Ben Davies.

At a roundtable discussion jointly hosted by Asiamoney and Citibank, leading bankers, corporates and service providers discussed the differences that e-commerce can make, and has made, to supply chain management in Asia.

Technology is fast transforming the world of investment research. Not that long ago, fund managers had to thumb through piles of paper reports, literally metres high, to peruse stock recommendations and updates from brokerages. But computerization is changing all that. Screens have replaced paper. Yet some specialists argue that a paper-and-ink mentality lingers on to the detriment of the more efficient data access made possible by the bolder use of technology.

The letter of credit, long the backbone of the trade finance industry, is outdated, and the race is on to create a viable on-line alternative. But institutions are discovering that financing their clients on-line is not as straightforward as it seems. By Joy Lee.

The Miles transaction has emerged as one of the most innovative of recent equity-linked deals, as well as one of the most controversial, with one banker saying he is "amazed" to see it featuring in league tables of convertible deals. But as a number of other convertible bond houses have included the transaction in their new issue statistics, it seems reasonable to classify the transaction under the umbrella of convertibles.

The convertible product is being taken up by issuers in an increasing variety of contexts. Along with the traditional considerations of cost savings versus straight debt and less dilution compared with equity issues, convertibles are today being viewed by many companies as a core source of funding in their own right. Equity-linked financing as part of asset disposals in the telecoms sector is just one of the many channels that are feeding into the market.

European convertible bond outstandings have undergone explosive growth over the past two to three years, reflecting a general upsurge in financing requirements among European borrowers, the attractions of selling large cross-holdings through exchangeable bonds and a ready availability of demand due to a transformation of the investor base for equity-linked securities. Supply did not materialise quite as expected last year, but the market's future looks bright.

While German issuance in the convertibles market has surged over the last 12-18 months, bankers report that they remain disappointed by the appetite for equity-linked bonds among German investors. In a highlight deal such as last year's Hutchison Whampoa/Vodafone offering, for example, German investors accounted only for about 3% of allocations, and even in German transactions they have scarcely been influential: domestic institutions bought about 11% of the Munich Re/Allianz exchangeable and only 12% of the EMTV convertible, according to figures published by WestLB Panmure.