Pre-migration untagged articles

Royal Bank of Scotland has hired Enrico Cantarelli, a senior official in the Italian Treasury, as head of public sector coverage in its Italian global banking and markets business.

Royal Bank of Scotland has hired Enrico Cantarelli, a senior official in the Italian Treasury, as head of public sector coverage in its Italian global banking and markets business.

The credit default swap market was largely unaffected by the hurricane of new debt that swept through the market this week, as the great majority of issuers were supranationals and high quality financial institutions that are only peripheral to credit derivatives.

HSBC has made two appointments to its credit arbitrage business, specialising in ABS investments. The bank's structured investment vehicle Cullinan Finance, which began issuing in September, now has $8.5bn of assets.

Tradition has expanded its US dollar interest rate swap screen to provide 24 hour live prices. Hitherto, it has been live only in London time, but now, as the day progresses, Tokyo, then London and then New York submit prices in turn. When trading sessions overlap, the best prices from each time zone will be used, explained chief executive Robin Houldsworth. Clients cannot execute trades on the Tradition screen. This must be handled in the traditional manner by voice.

ABN Amro Bank added a second point to its covered bond yield curve this week, following up its Eu2bn 10 year debut of September with a successful Eu2bn seven year. The bank had been considering five or seven year issues and chose the longer maturity to meet the stronger demand further along the curve in Europe.

Dutch car leasing group Athlon Holdings will resurrect its debut public bond later today (Friday) after postponing the issue in November. The Baa3/BBB- rated issuer is bookbuilding a deal through ABN Amro, which is expected to raise between Eu200m and Eu300m. The deal will be a three year floating rate note that will price between 55bp and 60bp over mid-swaps.

The Republic of Austria and the Hellenic Republic this week became the first European sovereign issuers to set out their stalls in the bond market in 2006. Austria issued a 15 year syndicated government bond and Greece a 10 year.

The European subordinated debt market came alive last week after a rather subdued first week of trading in 2006.

A furore this week surrounded the Romanian government's appointment of Credit Suisse First Boston to advise on the $800m IPO of state telecoms company Romtelecom — but reports that UBS has appealed against the decision are premature.