Commonwealth Bank of Australia's €1.5bn five-year issue was the third and comfortably the most successful Australian transaction since the country passed supportive legislation for covered bonds in late 2011. Joint bookrunner on the deal, BNP Paribas, put its success down to timing and the choice of currency.

When China's biggest bank, ICBC, launched its first dollar bond issue, it offered investors a rare opportunity of direct exposure to the mainland banking system. There was no shortage of interest. Along with UBS and ICBC's own investment arm, Barclays Capital landed the role of global co-ordinator, helping BarCap cement its Asian standing.

Issuing in Europe in 2011 has been a hazardous task, but Com Hem's highly leveraged buyout bridge underwritten by joint mandated lead arranger Goldman Sachs managed to defy the odds, thanks in no small part to the diverse elements of the deal.

As investors flock to the perceived safer ground of corporates at the expense of sovereigns or financials, RBS has been busy successfully utilising the private placement markets in a $1bn deal for caterer Compass Group and the Swiss franc issuance market for utility provider GTS Suez. 

When Chinese investors sought to secure a supply of niobium metal, UBS had the unique challenge of coordinating five state-owned enterprises to a punishing timetable, all the while taking on board the differing needs of each enterprise. 

It has taken nearly two years, but Indonesian mobile telecoms operator Axis has secured $1.2bn of sharia-compliant financing. For many of the players involved, it was their first dealing with sharia principles, presenting HSBC and its Saudi affiliate with a complex task.

The listing of Swiss commodity trading and mining group Glencore caused a few headaches for joint global coordinator Morgan Stanley. However, the impressive list of investors it helped secure shows that there is a big global appetite for commodities.

Issuing in Greece in the current climate is a brave move, but that did not stop telecoms company OTE entering the market earlier this year, thus posing quite a challenge for joint lead manager BNP Paribas.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch's European ECM team has had a strong start to 2011, built chiefly around its successful 'compressed bookbuild to refloat an asset' – or Cobra – for BC Partners' Turkish retail business.

Afren's high-yield bond issue earlier this year attracted interest from emerging market investors as well as specialist energy players, two investor groups who rarely overlap in the bond markets.