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The syndicate of banks that signed into the Eu3bn five year revolving credit for Vivendi Universal in March 2002 and its Eu850m five year revolver in March 1999 gathered in Paris on Wednesday to attend an information meeting hosted by Vivendi and a group of 11 banks. At the meeting, Vivendi and the 11 banks asked the syndicate of lenders in the two facilities to waive negative pledge agreements.

Rating: Aa2/AA/AA

Wella, the German hair care company, has signed a Eu1bn debt issuance programme. Deutsche Bank has bagged the arrangership. The issuer has decided against applying for a long term rating from any of the agencies because Peter Pielmeyer, head of group financing at the issuer, believes that the company's brand name will overcome any problems attracting investors. "We have not published a long term rating," he said. "We come as part of a sector that is rare to investors and this, coupled with Wella's credit standing and name recognition, will be more than sufficient to mobilise the funds we may need."

There was more activity this week in a storming primary market than in any week since March. More than $20bn of investment grade supply was issued in the dollar market and over Eu12.5bn came to the euro sector. But markets remain volatile, more so following yesterday's (Thursday) fall in the Dow Jones to below 8,000 for the second time since July.

Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA Amount: $50m

Rating: Aa2/A+ Amount: $2bn

Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services has agreed a minimum strike price of Sfr65 with the underwriters of its $2.5bn rights issue. Zurich announced plans two weeks ago for a $2bn-$2.5bn offering, but only put in place firm underwriting on Tuesday. The exact terms of the deal will be set on October 11, once an EGM has approved the offering.

Rating: Aaa/AAA Amount: Eu500m Hypotheken Pfandbrief series 510

Amount: Eu359m Legal maturity: April 30, 2093

Amount: Eu1.7bn Issue price: 100.00

Commentary

E.On has more than doubled the size of its EuroMTN programme to Eu20bn. This comes less than a year after the borrower increased the limit to Eu7.5bn from its original size of Eu2bn. Hans-Gisbert Ulmke, executive vice president of finance at E.On said: "We used up the previous volume by placing Eu7.5bn of bonds in four tranches in euro and sterling."