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SG (bookrunner), WestLB (bookrunner) and Lehman Brothers (bookrunner) confirm that they have received underwriting commitments for Wembley National Stadium's £426.4m project financing. Banks have been asked to commit Eu60m to be brought down to final take and holds of Eu40m for 140bp all-in.

Rating: AAA Amount: Eu125m (fungible with Eu500m issue launched 06/02/01)

Amount: Eu1bn Rating: Fitch/Standard & Poor's

The debt markets slipped into the torpid Christmas holiday mood this week, but there were still a few swap-driven deals that exerted downward pressure upon swap spreads in the major markets. To add to the tightening pressure felt by euro swap spreads, Standard and Poor's offered a warning on Germany's credit, which inflated bund yields.

Sole mandated arranger Deutsche Bank is set to close syndication of the $40m two year term loan for General Banking & Trust shortly. Hungarian financial institutions have swarmed into the loan market this year and as a result some bankers felt that liquidity was not there to get this deal away at such a late stage.

Mandated arranger BayernLB has signed banks into the $30m five year multi-currency club style bullet term loan for Reykjavik Energy. The facility was oversubscribed and increased to $40m.

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.