Raising a glass to the crème de la crème

Finally, the spectre of the great financial crisis has faded. In the past year deal flow has swelled, with transactions that had been slowly ripening through a stalled pipeline finally coming to market, and others being quickly birthed by optimistic market sentiment.

Though China remained resilient in the aftermath of the Lehman debacle, it still feels good to cheer about Asia's reinvigorated health as mirrored in the uptick of activity with Chinese players. In particular, those deals that were mired with complexity, they should be celebrated because they set precedents and re-instilled confidence that the tough, the tricky, the new and the previously only-imagined were still possible.