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While issuers in Swiss francs had a busy week investors some investors shied away from the market fearing interest rate hikes could affect yields.

HSBC is marketing the first European leveraged super-senior deal backed by asset backed securities with a spread trigger for AC Capital Partners called Accolades I. The deal is expected to close in June.

The Greek pension fund structured note affair moved a step closer to resolution yesterday (Thursday) when JP Morgan put its own cash behind a deal to unwind the transaction following a month of negotiations between the various parties involved. “We want to help the pension funds recoup the amount they paid for the bonds if they no longer want to own them and are pleased that our offer to buy back the bonds is now moving forward,” the US bank said in a statement.

JPMorgan has priced Indicus Investment Management’s second European leveraged loan CLO called Queen Street II.

Do you think that Chuck Prince can survive a showdown with Eddie Lampert?” was the question we were asked by a highly regarded Swiss journalist last week. His telephone call came directly after the announcement that ESL Investments, run by multi-billionaire Eddie Lampert, had bought $800m of Citigroup shares.

The LCDX, a credit default swap index referencing US leveraged loans, began trading this week and clocked up $11bn of notional principal in its first day of trading.

Last week we commented briefly on the slightly bizarre exit of Dow Kim from Merrill Lynch. Judging by the number of messages we received, Dow has many friends and is generally considered to be very capable.

UniCredit is due to buy Capitalia, the Rome bank, for about Eu21.8bn, it emerged on Sunday. The merger will create the largest Italian bank by market capitalisation and the second largest in Europe.

Citigroup fell three spots behind HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, on table one, covering all third party private placements, while further down the table Société Générale has dropped a couple of spots to 13th to the benefit of ABN Amro and Merrill Lynch which each move up a slot.