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Few people in the financial world would claim to be able to predict the markets.

For a supposed future technology hub, Malaysia has a rather cautious stance on telecommunications – reflected in its attitudes towards 3G.

Financial advisor Allen Perkins Group is branching out in more ways than one. Asiamoney travelled to its leafy Kowloon Tong offices to lunch with group managing director, Elsa Pau.

It's all happening in Taiwan's telecoms sector. The ball started rolling with privatization of the former state monopoly, Chunghwa Telecom. Now the sector is reaching full tilt as old names and new entrants fight for sought-after licences and revenues.

There are some familiar names in our ninth best-managed companies poll – the greats of Asian business didn't get where they are for nothing, and they're certainly not about to relinquish their thrones now. But there are surprises too, and some sorry falls from grace. By Olivia Chow and Robert Law.

After China Mobile's successful secondary offering in October, you could be forgiven for thinking that telecoms stocks are back in fashion. But a look east, to Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom, provides a different picture. That painful listing is still not complete. Thirty three per cent of Taiwan's state-run fixed-line operator, one of the last government-owned telcos in Asia to be privatized, was scheduled to be sold off this year in four separate tranches: 15.24% to domestic retail investors, 2.75% to employees, 3% to local institutions and 12% to the ADR market. So far, less than 3% of the company's stock has found its way in to private hands with only the ADR issue yet to go.

The Indian state department of telecommunications has recently been corporatized in a move towards greater liberalization of the country's telecoms industry. It is a welcome move for local and overseas investors with an eye on the sector's vast market potential.

The record year for samurai issuance continues to surprise. In November DaimlerChrysler broke the record for the largest ever samurai issue – which had itself already been broken several times this year – with a ¥220 billion (US$1.99 billion) bond, increased from ¥200 billion. The deal, which had four tranches, was led by Nikko Salomon Smith Barney and Goldman Sachs. It was comprised of ¥70 billion of 2-year paper, ¥65 billion of 3-year, ¥75 billion of five-year and ¥10 billion of 10-year. The range of maturities doubtless helped in getting such a large transaction away, particularly since Japanese investor sentiment towards foreign issuers had been weakened somewhat by their experiences with another western company. Xerox, which launched its own landmark yen deal earlier this year, has since run in to difficulties, widening the spread on its bonds and alarming some investors.

Despite the political crisis, there's no shortage of willing investors in the Republic of the Philippines, judging by the first-ever issue of 25-year fixed rate peso-denominated treasury bonds, which was 3.18 times oversubscribed. The government raised Ps5.286 billion (US$105 million) having set out to raise Ps2 billion. "From its initial amount, I knew it was going to be oversubscribed," says Joel Consing, head of capital markets at HSBC in the Philippines, which was sole bookrunner. "But I was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of the oversubscription."

Indian takeovers are turning hostile. According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), which regulates this area, there have been 894 takeovers, mergers and acquisitions in the country to date, most of them friendly. But things are changing, as shown by one of the most controversial recent attempts – a move by the AH Dalmia group to take over Great Eastern Shipping Company (Gesco), a shipping and real estate company. The Dalmia group has acquired 5% of Gesco and on October 15 announced an open offer to Gesco shareholders for a further 45% at Rs27 (approximately 57 US cents) a share, beginning on November 24. The Mumbai-based Sheth family that runs Gesco, and holds 11.5% of the stock, was not impressed: Gesco managing director Ghanshyam Sheth sought the intervention of Sebi to stop the bid because he felt the Dalmia group was violating the regulator's takeover code. The Sheths finally announced a counter offer of Rs36 a share, later improving that offer to Rs44, to try to acquire 33.5% of Gesco's equity capital.

Well, they did it. After months of scrutiny of the company's finances, much of it by this magazine, Pacific Century CyberWorks went some way to silencing its critics when it completed two major loan facilities, concluding the onerous refinancing of the company's record-breaking US$12 billion loan raised at the start of the year. The most significant of the two is a US$4.7 billion loan which has been raised specifically to refinance the remainder of the original loan. It is divided in to three tranches, each of which will be made available in Hong Kong dollars and US dollars. The first is a US$1.5 billion three-year loan, with an interest margin of 60bp over Hibor or 50 over Libor, depending on the currency; the second is a US$2.3 billion five-year loan at 75bp/65bp; and the third is a US$900 million seven-year facility, 90bp/80bp. Barclays Capital, BOCI, Chase Manhattan, Mizuho Financial Group (specifically the Fuji part of it), HSBC and Hang Seng Bank are the coordinating arrangers.

A drive by the State Bank of India, India's largest bank, to bring in foreign currency deposits from overseas has proved a success. The India Millennium Deposit (IMD) plan raised US$5.5 billion from expatriate Indians between October 21 and November 6. Foreign banks played a key role. Citibank topped the list by collecting US$685 million, followed by HSBC (US$550 million), Standard Chartered (US$480 million), Credit Lyonnais (US$400 million) and ABN Amro (US$385 million). Participating banks are entitled to a soft loan, at 10% interest, of half of the rupee equivalent of the money mobilized by that bank in foreign currency. That proved appealing because foreign banks operating in India have few branches and limited rupee resources. Indian institutions, which already have large deposit bases, proved less enthusiastic.