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Bank of America will hold a bank meeting tomorrow for Vanguard Health Systems, launching syndication of a $150 million, add-on term loan "B" to back the company's $295 million acquisition of five hospitals from Baptist Health System, said a banker. Pricing for the add-on had not been determined at press time. The company's existing $125 million revolver, led by B of A and co-documentation agents Wachovia Securities and General Electric Capital Corp., is priced at LIBOR plus 3%. A B of A banker declined to comment.

Hillenbrand Industries, which caters to the funeral and health care service industries, needs more covenant leeway for its credit facility after a jury ruled against the company and its Hil-Rom business unit in a lawsuit filed by Kinetic Concepts. Hillenbrand has appealed the $173.6 million decision-- which finds the health care unit culpable of violating various antitrust laws-- but also amended its $500 million credit in the event that the litigation results in a payout. "We amended the facility in case of a material decree," said Mark Lanning, v.p. and treasurer. The amended line provides an alleviated debt-to-capital ratio requirement if Hillenbrand loses the lawsuit, he explained. The court is expected to issue a ruling sometime after this Wednesday.

Commercial mortgages took centre stage in Australia this week, as two CMBS transactions came to market and Deutsche Industrial resurrected its postponed CMBS issue. Over A$3bn of CMBS will have been issued by the end of the year. On Monday ANZ Bank and Commonwealth Bank of Australia priced a A$200m transaction for properties group Centro. The five year bullet notes are backed by one regional and six sub-regional shopping centres.

Australia The Bank of Queensland (BoQ) launched a A$125m December 2005 transaction yesterday (Thursday) to be priced today. The three year deal was marketed with pricing guidance of 44bp-46bp over swaps, with UBS Warburg and Westpac Institutional Bank acting as joint lead managers. "The markets are quiet right now, so BoQ almost has the market to itself," said one banker.

Australia The Australian government has deferred the next sale of Telstra stock, the T3 issue. It would have been worth more than A$30bn at recent Telstra trading levels, or close to $20bn.

ABN Amro Rothschild and UBS Warburg completed the bookbuild for the MobileOne IPO this week in tricky and price sensitive markets. After a brief retail offer that ends early next week, Singapore's second largest mobile phone company will list on December 4.

RHB Bank this week delayed the launch of its $200m 10 year non-call five subordinated transaction. The Malaysian bank set out on its marketing process for the lower tier two issue at the end of last week, with the intention of launching it by today (Friday).

Australia Macquarie Bank has launched a A$300m multitranche ABS for UFJ Australia, and will price it next week. Symphony Trust No 3 will be secured on commercial hire purchase and chattel mortgage agreements. Under a chattel mortgage, title for the asset passes immediately to the obligor, rather than upon payment of the final instalment.

Citigroup has re-opened the Samurai market with a blowout ¥155bn six tranche deal that was priced on Wednesday. The deal is the largest Samurai bond since GECC tapped the market for ¥200bn in June. Citigroup also raised a ¥10bn 20 year tranche as part of the bond, becoming the first non-Japanese corporate borrower to do so.

Amount: £257.56 Legal maturity: November 28, 2035

Credit Agricole has reiterated its desire to buy Crédit Lyonnais in the same week that BNP Paribas surprised its shareholders by taking an 11% stake. Crédit Agricole's management told analysts and investors in a conference call that it would not be prepared to pay "a silly price" for Crédit Lyonnais, but implied that Crédit Lyonnais might be more favourable towards the idea since BNP Paribas' move.

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