Pre-migration untagged articles

Merrill leads the private placement structured note table at this early stage of the year, courtesy of a $200m Brazilian real-linked note issued by Kommunalbanken, a Eu29m equity linker for Banesto, four smaller deals for Commonwealth Bank of Australia and a batch of Eksportfinans and SEK yen trades.

Asset backed commercial paper investors continued to favour multi-seller vehicles this week, although dealers reported that some credit arbitrage vehicles were able to find demand.

Who wants to be a regular columnist on the Euromarkets? We have friends who envy what we do. They believe that the role of a columnist is not always intellectually demanding and that most of our life is taken up by gossipy telephone conversations and fine meals in swish restaurants.

THE NORTHERN Rock board survived an attempt to constrain its activities at an extraordinary general meeting this week. However, this good news for Northern Rock’s board was overshadowed by concerns over the availability of the funding needed for a private bidder to purchase to Northern Rocks.

The covered bond market has put in a remarkable performance for the second week running, with a rich cast of issuers executing an intriguing dance, in deals totalling Eu6.25bn.

Mandates continued to pile up in the covered bond market this week, despite supply being as busy as anyone can remember and pricing expectations being constantly revised.

A triple whammy of bad news raised fears this week that the flow of international listings on the London Stock Exchange could be hit in the coming year.

Early in the new year, we lunched in Knightsbridge with a friend who was visiting from New York. This investment banker, who is still very young, has made squillions, and we respect his views on markets.

JP MORGAN Chase announced on Wednesday that its fourth quarter income for 2007 was down 21% on the previous year as a result of $1.3bn write-downs linked to subprime exposure and CDOs.

HYPO REAL Estate Holding AG’s shares plummeted by close to 35% in Frankfurt on Tuesday after the German commercial property lender announced pre-tax profit had fallen in 2007 and that it would cut its dividend.