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Compiled by Richard Favis, RBC Capital Markets, Johannesburg Tel: +27 11 784 5065

Mediobanca has added three banks to the named dealer panel off its euro5 billion ($4.79 billion) Euro-MTN programme. They are Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Goldman Sachs and Salomon Smith Barney. The programme has $752.73 million-worth of debt outstanding off 24 trades, most of which are denominated in euro.

Even as Rick Stoddard, the head of Merrill Lynch's issuer client group for Asia, prepares to leave, the bank has wasted no time in making three new hires to help target the US bank's client and issuer base. Raymond Wu and Leenor Lee are joining Merrill Lynch's investor client group, which is responsible for marketing and selling debt instruments, including derivatives.

Metropolitan Life Global Funding I has signed a $3 billion global note issuance programme and Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) is the arranger. The European dealer group is ABN Amro, Bank One, Bear Stearns, CSFB, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Schroder Salomon Smith Barney and UBS Warburg. The US counterpart of each bank is listed as a US dealer off the programme. Metropolitan Life is one of the biggest life insurance companies in the US and also offers financial services. It serves about 10 million individual households and companies, including 88 of the Fortune 100 biggest companies, with approximately 33 million employees.

In the latest wave of IPOs to hit the Swedish market, Nobia and Ballingslöv, two Swedish kitchen manufacturers, completed their IPOs on the Stockholm stock exchange this week with mixed results. Nobia priced its 20m share offering, some 35% of the company, at Skr78. This was at the lower end of the Skr76-Skr92 price range for the offering. But the shares slumped on their first day of trading on Wednesday, closing at Skr72, down over 7.5%.

EuroWeek understands that Roy Fraser has resigned from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein after three years in which he headed frequent borrowers and sterling new issues, reporting to global syndicate head Sean Park. He joined from HSBC in December 1999. Peter Stiles has reappeared in the loan market after having left the syndications team of Nordea last year.

Rating: Aa3/AA-/AA Amount: $300m

Aeronautic, Defence and Space Company (EADS) has opted to increase its heavily oversubscribed Eu2bn facility to Eu2.85bn. Some Eu3.6bn was raised from the market in what has been a successful debut foray into the loan market. BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan arranged the deal.

Hungary The Municipality of Budapest hopes to issue its second Eurobond later this year, according to Aladar Madarasz, deputy chairman of Budapest's finance and budget committee. If successful, it would follow the city's debut DM150m five year issue which is set to mature in July 2003.

Richard Colwell has joined Credit Suisse Asset Management's UK equity team as part of the fund manager's efforts to strengthen its presence in the sector after the acquisition of SLC Asset Management last year. The appointment of Colwell brings CSAM's UK equity team to eight, including Stuart Harris who has moved from the fund manager's global finance unit.

Greece The Hellenic Republic priced its Eu665m offering in telecoms operator OTE last Friday. Lead managers Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley were left with 5% of the deal on their books, but despite this the offering was priced at a 0.9% discount to the previous night's close.

Guarantor: State of New South Wales Rating: AA+