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Alliance Capital has hired Dina Sbare to the position of v.p. in the high-yield research group. An analyst with knowledge of the situation says Sbare was hired to fill a position that had been vacant, though the name of her predecessor and the reason for the vacancy could not be determined. Sbare declined comment when reached at Alliance, as did Kate Kutasi, head of U.S. high-yield, distressed and private securities research at the firm.

American Media (AMI) dominates the tabloid business and its supremacy in this niche area of the media market is built on a debt-financed acquisitive growth strategy. AMI is acquiring Weider Publications for $350 million and Moody's Investors Service expects the publisher to continue to pursue debt-financed acquisitions.

American Tower Corp.'s bank debt received a lift from the news that the company would use $30 million in proceeds from the sale of its Verestar subsidiary to pay down its credit facility. Market players said a $2-3 million piece traded in the 92 3/4-93 context. The bank debt has rallied from the mid-to-high 80s over the last month. Questions for Bradley Singer, cfo, were referred to a spokeswoman who did not return calls.

Evergreen International Aviation is looking for new lenders, including institutional players, to complete a facility designed to refinance roughly $275 million in bank debt coming due in May. Mike Barr, Evergreen cfo, said the company is in negotiations with a number of banks and institutional lenders but is running up against the stigma currently attached to the airline industry. "We are in a situation where we are actually performing very well in an industry that has been hard hit," he said. "Our biggest problem is trying to convince people that we are not United Airlines."

David L. Babson & Company is said to be coming to market with a new collateralized loan obligation, the first one since completing the acquisition of Wachovia's institutional leveraged loan asset management business, First Union Institutional Debt Management (IDM). Drew Dickey, managing director at Babson, could not confirm or deny Babson is doing a deal as "any CLO would be a private placement." But, he added, "Certainly, it is fair to say the acquisition of IDM enhanced Babson's ability to complete deals when it is prudent."

Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch will be launching this week retail syndication of the $800 million deal for Penn National Gaming as regulatory approval is set to clear in February for the gaming company's $780 million acquisition of Hollywood Casino Corp. The credit launched at the senior level in October, with Société Générale and Credit Lyonnais signing on at the agent level, said a banker familiar with the deal. Wells Fargo and Wachovia Bank have also signed on.

Bear Stearns plans to add two more analysts to its investment grade research team. Doug Colandrea, the firm's head of investment-grade research for North America, says he has been interviewing for a senior analyst position to cover real estate investment trusts, and hopes to have it filled by the end of the quarter. "We have a major commercial mortgage operation and we feel we can leverage off of that and pick up REIT's," he says. He is also looking for a mid-level analyst to follow basic industries or some other area where the firm's coverage is currently thin or non-existent. Colandrea says that hire will likely come later in the year.

Mizuho Securities is pre-marketing a ¥16bn domestic securitisation for consumer finance firm Orient Corp (Orico). Oasis Version III will securitise the subordinated tranches from five previous Orico deals. Mizuho has pioneered this innovative technique of funding first loss pieces. This transaction is the third of its kind for Orico, and the bank arranged a similar deal for Showa Leasing.

Japan is likely to experience strong growth in securitisation this year. Issuance reached ¥4.5tr in 2002, and analysts predict that this will rise to over ¥5tr in 2003. Most of the growth is likely to come from the development of existing trends, notably repeat issuers and synthetic CLOs.

While there is caution about prospects for equity issuance in Asia Pacific this year, there is also a healthy degree of optimism. Plenty of money is available to take both pure equity and convertible paper, but it is clear that sensible pricing, solid management, yield and defensive structures will, like last year, feature heavily. Outside of Australia and Japan, new issuance in 2002 was surprisingly strong. In the year ahead, the market consensus is that there will be few jumbo privatisation issues, but there should be a solid flow of deals in the range of $100m-$800m. There should also be continued diversification across a broad array of industry sectors, including banking, insurance, property, shipping/logistics, power and telecommunications.

With presidential elections only recently concluded, the Republic of Korea has wasted no time in mandating a $1bn 10 year refinancing, paving the way for what could be one of the most influential Asian sovereign benchmarks of 2003. The bond will only be the second ever from the A3/A- rated sovereign. Its rarity and 10 year maturity means that the issue will be an important reference for other Asian sovereign issuers and the strong pipeline of Korean bonds expected in the coming months.

The Republic of the Philippines struggled to complete a $500m tap of its 2013 bond on Wednesday after reports on Tuesday suggested that the Philippines' current account figures for 2002 had been overstated. The sovereign's spreads on the 2013 issue widened by 25bp from the beginning of the week, leaving joint lead managers Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley fighting to regain the initiative.