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The World Bank has closed its doors to emerging market sovereigns looking for guarantees for international bonds and loans, following Argentina's decision not to pay a $250m obligation coming due on its $1.5bn guaranteed deal. Argentina said this week that it will not meet the payment to international bondholders, due on October 15, leaving the World Bank to foot the bill.

EuroWeek hears that CIBC is in the market with the recapitalisation of debt facilities signed for media company Xerium. CIBC arranged the original $628m debt facilities that backed the buy-out of media company BTR Paper Technology by Apax Partners in June 2000. The company is now called Xerium. In 2001 CIBC restructured and refinanced those loans by adding them to existing senior debt.

SBS Leasing, a division of Banca Lombarda closed the first Italian lease backed deal of the quarter this week with a Eu619m securitisation of real estate, vehicle, and equipment leases arranged by Credit Suisse First Boston. The deal precedes a busy pipeline in the sector this quarter, including issues from Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Selma Bipiemme and Privata Leasing. After an extensive marketing process, final pricing fell 2bp wide of talk on the senior bonds at 36bp over. The junior tranches, wrapped by the European Investment Fund, both hit price talk.

Scandinavia is enjoying its annual autumn outing in the mortgage backed market. But only one issuer has made it out so far, SEB Merchant Banking and joint bookrunner Handelsbanken Trading this week launching a Eu275m issue from the Framtiden series. Framtiden Multi-Family Housing Finance No 4 AB (Publ) offered the usual single tranche of triple-A rated notes. Bonds are backed by three mortgage loans secured on multi-family housing pledged to Förvaltnings AB Framtiden, a municipal housing company owned by the City of Gothenburg,

Aircraft engine leasing company, Willis Lease Finance is hoping to launch the first aircraft engine securitisation creating a new asset class in the asset backed market. Although aircraft operating leases have been securitised since 1992 no one has successfully structured an engine leasing deal - despite the fact that engines values and lease rentals are far more stable than the aircraft they are attached to.

Capital One Bank launched its second securitisation of UK credit cards this week with a Eu756m transaction lead managed by Barclays Capital and Citigroup/SSSB. Despite some uncertainty and volatility in the credit card market, investor confidence in a strong Capital One portfolio was high. "This was a good deal and I still believe in Capital One despite the negative stories in the US and the fact that there is still some event risk," said one European investor. "But 27bp was our minimum, which was great for a good quality credit card deal."

Robeco Institutional Asset Management this week closed a Eu1.53bn synthetic collateralised debt obligation via Rabobank. The deal brings Robeco's tally of European managed synthetic deals to three since the group's first such issue in December last year. Rabobank reported strong demand and the deal was increased from the original issuance of Eu250m funded notes.

France ABN Amro and SG will on Monday launch Cars Alliance Alliance Funding plc, the Eu1.4bn securitisation of French auto loans for Renault Crédit International Banque. Price talk is in the 17bp area on the triple-A notes with an average life of 3.1 years and 45bp at the single-A level with an average life of 3.75 years. Legal maturity is October 2017.

Lehman Brothers is parachuting in Benoit Savoret, head of equities for Asia-Pacific in Tokyo, in a newly created role as head of European equity trading for both cash and derivatives to beef up its London-based operation. Lehman is reportedly revamping its equity derivatives business after plummeting global stock markets have resulted in a dismal year for equity desks, according to rivals. Francois Pham-Quang, head of European equity derivatives sales, who officially resigned last Friday but signaled his intention to leave last month, said the firm has decided to bring in Savoret to devote a senior manager to the group, in which he was the only managing director in the group.

AT&T Corp.'s new corporate revolver has seen a lot of action after breaking into the secondary markets this week. Traders said the paper initially was moving in the 93 1/2 - 94 1/2 context but had firmed up to the 94 7/8 - 95 7/8 range by midweek. Pieces of the $4 billion loan were rumored to have traded between 94 and 97 in the grey market a couple of weeks ago (LMW, 9/23). The credit was largely completed via four major banks - Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan - that each picked up approximately $550 million of the name. Calls to Thomas Horton, cfo, were not returned by press time.

Credit-default protection on Avnet Inc. doubled last week after Moody's Investors Service downgraded the distributor of electronic components and computer parts two notches to Baa3 and left it on negative watch. Five-year default swaps doubled to around 600 basis points Wednesday from around 300bps Monday, according to traders. A spread blow-out is expected after a two-notch downgrade, but traders said this widened even further than normal. "The theory is that with the downgrade to Baa3, it will disappear from a lot of CDOs, and the Street won't naturally own protection," said one trader. Hedge funds and loan portfolios were the heaviest buyers of protection last week.

Aberdeen Asset Management Asia, a Singapore-based fund manager, is preparing to launch its first hedge fund this week, in which it will consider using over-the-counter derivatives. Graeme Sinclair, investment director in Singapore, said once the long/short equity fund is up and running it will look at OTC instruments, such as equity options. "We'll discuss it then with our derivatives desk in London," said Sinclair, estimating the timeframe would be around six months. He declined to elaborate on its derivative plans. "We'll start out small," Sinclair noted.