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Imperial Tobacco's six tranche deal will be closed oversubscribed next week. Banks will be signed in before Christmas. The deal is split into five euro denominated tranches totalling Eu2.55bn and a £400m revolver. Mandated lead arrangers are ABN Amro, BayernLB, HSBC and JP Morgan.

Arranger Bank of Baroda has funded a $100m five year term loan for Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI). Two other banks are considering participating in the facility which pays a margin of 80bp over Libor.

Rating: Aa2/A+ Amount: $1.1bn

Investors had to choose this week from a variety of collateralised debt obligation structures this week as seasoned CDO managers Axa Investment Managers, Pimco, Prudential M&G and Henderson Global Investors all raced to close deals before year end, running the gamut from cash deals to synthetic structures. The first to market was Axa Investment Managers, which returned on Tuesday to its Jazz programme with a Eu756m synthetic collateralised debt obligation via Deutsche Bank, the same bank that closed the asset manager's last Jazz deal. The transaction offers a leveraged exposure to largely investment grade corporate names and asset backed securities.

Credit Suisse Group this week launched a warmly received Sfr1.25bn mandatory convertible bond offering, increasing investors' familiarity with a product that has recently caught the European equity market's attention. Following on from the strong reception for Swiss Life's Sfr250m mandatory offering last week, Credit Suisse further highlighted the uses of the mandatory product in helping to bolster the capital bases of troubled financial groups.

Mandated arrangers of the Eu2.4bn loan for Irish fixed line telephony group Eircom by Valentia Telecommunications - Allied Irish Banks, Bank of Ireland, Barclays, Deutsche Bank (joint bookrunner) and Goldman Sachs (joint bookrunner) - have decided to free the facility to trade in the secondary market. Arrangers opted not to launch the deal into a general syndication at the start of 2002 when sentiment toward the telco sector was at its worst. However, the lead arrangers are eager to sell down some of their exposure.

Fiera Milano and Socotherm had lacklustre debuts on the Milan Stock Exchange this week after both completed their IPOs over the weekend. Milan conference centre operator Fiera Milano raised Eu97.5m after it sold 13m shares at the bottom of its Eu7.5-Eu8.75 pricing range.

Loan market practitioners spent much of this week discussing Schemaventotto's Eu10bn acquisition facility. The deal backs Schemaventotto's takeover of a 30% share holding - worth Eu8bn - in Italy's biggest motorway company Autostrade. The maturity of the refinancing of the Eu10bn deal, which will take place 18 months after signing, has moved in from an initial 16 years, to 12 years to seven years, after complaints from the market that the deal had an unacceptably long tenor.

The Italian government surprised investors on Monday when it sold its remaining stake in Telecom Italia. The sale was lead managed by Morgan Stanley and raised Eu1.4bn to help reduce the government's debt. Bankers had been expecting Italy to reduce its holding in oil company Eni or electricity company Enel long before Telecom Italia, which has seen its share price slide this year. NM Rothschild advised the Italian treasury.

Amount: Eu756m Legal maturity: December 2047

Rating: Aaa/AA+/AA+ Amount: $150m (fungible with $1bn issue launched 30/10/02)