The year in charts

Whole new level All for one and one for all – that seemed to be Alibaba’s motto when it came time for the internet giant’s record-setting IPO. Levelling the playing field turned out to be good business for all concerned in the US$25bn deal. In the old folk tale, only Ali Baba knew how to access the secret cave of treasure. However, with the largest IPO in history, the real-world Alibaba has done a particularly good job of spreading the wealth around. The company’s New York Stock Exchange debut this year is already the stuff of legend; Alibaba...

Calling Mrs Watanabe In September, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba toured major investment centres across the globe as it sought to drum up investor enthusiasm for its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. In Asia, the company took in Hong Kong and Singapore. The only major Asian investor base it failed to try and woo was Japan’s. It was a notable absence, particularly given that 32.4% of Alibaba is under the control of a Japanese citizen, Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank and Japan’s most dynamic entrepreneur. For Japan, the...

Unexpected harvest It was supposed to be the year in which the long-awaited reversal of US Treasury yields forced a rethink on bond investors and cooled the breakneck growth of Asia’s G3 bond markets. As we now know, that didn’t happen, and 2014 instead turned out to be yet another showstopper for Asia’s new issue market. No, 2014 produced more of the same in Asia G3 – only much more so, with annual volume records again exceeding even the wildest dreams of a sell-side debt banker. All the boxes were ticked in primary: sovereign, investment...

IFR Asia reviews 2014 in cartoons A selection of some of the best cartoons published during 2014 in IFR Asia. To see the digital version of this report, please click here.

To see the digital version of this report, please click here.

Some alternative definitions for the themes of the year. To see the digital version of this report, please click here.