When bankers start talking excitedly about potential flotations from Kazakhstan it indicates there has been a sea change in equity capital markets. Expectations are for last year's recovery in equities business to feed through to a bumper 2005.

Bankers claim the pipeline of new issues is much stronger than 12 months ago across every region and sector. With prospective mergers and acquisitions activity at its highest level for three or four years, there should also be a need for equity and equity-linked financing to fund deals.