Free content

After a tough syndication in which pricing was jacked up two times and an original issue discount (OID) was added, as was call protection, Toys "R" Us' $800 million term loan soared to 101 after breaking at 99 7/8-100 3/8.

Investors are predicting concessions will need to be made on the massive $5.2 billion bank deal to back the acquisition of VNU N.V. by a consortium of private equity groups.

The following charts show the top five advancers and decliners in terms of % moves in the loan, bond and credit default swap markets for the previous week.

Asset-backed securities traders expect the launch of the ABS index's second series last week to trigger trading from new accounts.

--Perry Inglis, head of the European collateralized debt obligation group at Standard & Poor's in London, on demand for coupon ratings on credit constant proportion portfolio insurance.

Banks sold off short-dated U.S. dollar put and call options against all the major currencies at the end of last week.

Amit Patel, a director in credit-default swap trading at Barclays Capital in London, has quit the firm.

Strong collateralized debt obligation flows in Europe over the past month have filtered through to credit index trading--dealers who had built up long single-name protection exposure were hedging last week by selling protection on indices.

Barclays Capital is expanding its City equity trading force, with Luke Newman-Taylor, a single-stock trader at UBS, starting at the end of the last month.

BNP Paribas is looking to offload its single-stock event exposure by setting up a hedge fund.

Citigroup is due to price this week an investment note referencing Brazilian equity, via an exchange-traded fund.

Commerzbank has tapped Tony Au, credit structurer at Nomura International in Hong Kong, for a similar role in its Hong Kong hub.