Pre-migration untagged articles

Thank you for the kind responses to our comments about Lehman Brothers. Yes, it does appear futile trying to take cheap potshots at Lehman, when it has delivered on almost all its promises.

Our comments about some of the recent management changes at UBS seem to have fallen on sensitive ears in Zurich, London and New York.

Moody's this week called for comments on proposals to change the way it rates preferred stock and hybrid securities globally.

Despite the mixed messages on inflation, US corporate issuers piled into the dollar market this week in an attempt to get their funding in place before next week's Thanksgiving holiday.

Conduits and other structured vehicles boosted the EuroCP market this week as structured vehicles issued large volumes of attractively priced asset backed CP to fund new assets.

Dollar swap spreads compressed aggressively this week as a new wave of debt hit the corporate bond market.

The Italian Region of Piedmont issued a landmark transaction in the sub-sovereign bond sector this week by printing the largest ever single tranche bond from an Italian region. The Eu1.8bn 30 year bullet floating rate note also represented the borrower's first visit to the capital markets. Joint bookrunners were Banca IMI, Dexia and Merrill Lynch with joint lead Banca Opi.

Do we hear sounds of war drums along the Mohawk, coming from the direction of Stamford, Connecticut, the sprawling home of UBS in North America?

Issuance in unusual asset classes and structures enlivened MTN market flows this week, despite many dealers reporting a quiet trading environment.

Landesbank Berlin has restructured its conduit, Check Point Charlie, to allow it to issue extendible MTNs, or what it refers to as X-notes. The conduit is the first structured vehicle to issue extendible MTNs.

Table commentary