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The mandate to arrange the Eu150m five year facility for Privredna Banka Zagreb (PBZ) will be officially awarded in the next few days. The three remaining bidders are Bank Austria Creditanstalt, BayernLB and Sumitomo. The deal will be launched in 2003. The protracted bidding process attracted a good deal of attention from the market as the borrower has been pushing prices to a level that many banks could not. As a result, a number of banks - including WestLB and Standard Bank and more recently Citigroup/SSSB - were forced to back away from the deal.

In an unprecedented move, Credit Suisse First Boston has stormed up the league table of top mandated arrangers of Euromarket sponsor-driven LBO loans, from 28th position this time last year to number one year to date. The recently mandated deals for the buy-outs of Nycomed Pharma and Sigma Kalon have pushed CSFB up the tables from eight before these deals were signed, right to the top.

Mandated arrangers Bank Austria Creditanstalt, ING and Standard Bank signed banks into the Ck2.66bn four year facility for Bivideon this week. The facility pays a margin of 150bp over Libor. Proceeds will be used to refinance a Eu118m facility signed in December 2001.

Rating: Aaa/AA+/AAA Amount: Sfr200m

Deutsche Bank has won the mandate to arrange the City of Prague's EuroMTN programme. The facility, worth between Eu1bn and Eu2bn, will be put in place by the end of the first quarter of 2003. The issuer received six pitches, but Deutsche Bank, which is top of the EuroMTN arrangership league table for 2002, was chosen and is likely to lead the issuer's first trade. The timing of the borrower's first deal estimated at around Eu170m has not been decided.

Amount: Eu195.24m Rating: Fitch/Standard & Poor's

European high yield investors this week expressed the need for changes to the structural subordination of junk bonds. A group of leading investors is drafting a letter to investment banks detailing its objections, in the hope of provoking immediate change. "European high yield investors are dissatisfied with the high number of defaults there have been this year," said Gonzalo Fernandez, a director of the European High Yield Association and a partner at law firm Ashurst Morris Crisp.

Amount: Eu254m Legal maturity: September 28, 2052

Rating: Aaa/AAA Amount: Nkr300m (fungible with two issues totalling Nkr1.05bn issue first launched 17/10/01)

French telecoms equipment manufacturer Alcatel yesterday (Thursday) raised Eu630m from a mandatory convertible as interest in the structure reached a new high among European corporates.

Rating: Aaa/AAA Amount: £120m RPI linked