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Merrill Lynch has hired Craig Krandel from Credit Suisse First Boston's mortgage backed securities sales group. Krandel had left CSFB and was unavailable for comment by press time last Wednesday during the holiday-shortened week. Krandel, whom a senior Merrill official says will start in approximately one month given CSFB's non-compete policy, will be in a newly created slot. Harley Bassman, head of Merrill's mortgage group, declined comment citing corporate policy.

Weiss, Peck & Greer, the U.S. investment arm of Holland's largest asset manager The Robeco Group, is prepping its second collateralized debt obligation. The deal should be priced early next month, says a CDO market official. Called Robeco CDO V, the deal will be--as was Robeco CDO II sold last year--backed by high-yield bonds and loans. The arranger for the deal, Rabobank, in New York, is currently marketing the equity and the lower-rated debt tranches. Calls to Weiss and Rabobank were not returned.

OppenheimerFunds has hired James Sivigny as a senior high-yield analyst covering the oil and gas, utility and chemical sectors. Sivigny will be based in New York and report to David Negri and Tom Reedy, co-heads of high-yield at OppenheimerFunds. Negri says the firm will look to add an additional analyst or two, primarily to follow the healthcare and cable sectors. It has already begun interviewing candidates. He says the hires are primarily replacements, though OppenheimerFunds has added some new junior research positions. He declined to go into further detail, however.

Cinemark USA's plan to conduct an initial public offering and refinance its bank debt has prompted the rating agencies to turn positive on the movie-theater operator. The reduction of senior secured leverage from $350 million to $250 million is one of the reasons Moody's Investors Service has rated the company's new credit facility B1, one notch above its senior-implied rating and three notches above its bonds. The new facility, which consists of a $150 million term loan and a $100 million revolver, has been rated BB- by Standard & Poor's.

Holders of WorldCom's approximately $30 billion in bonds are beginning to form committees and hire legal representation in an attempt to recover as much as possible from the scandal-ridden telecommunications company. Distressed players say they expect a long and bitter fight between several classes of bondholders, not to mention bank lenders, who account for about $3 billion. Scott Klein, managing director at MW Post Advisory Group, says he is organizing a group of MCI bondholders, but did not elaborate, and did not return calls by press time last Tuesday during the holiday-shortened week. At least two sell-side traders say they are aware of a committee of intermediate bondholders that is forming. A group of investment-grade bondholders, each of whom has $500 in exposure, is also said to be seeking legal counsel.

Levels for Xerox's bank debt fell off significantly last week following the disclosure that the company would have to restate its revenues beyond the originally announced restatement. "Everyone knew that there was going to be some kind of an adjustment, but not to this degree," said one dealer.

G&K Services has selected Wachovia Bank and BANK ONE from a group of four of its 22 existing lenders to lead its new $325 million credit facility. "[Wachovia and BANK ONE] presented good market intelligence and creative ideas to meet the credit needs," said Glenn Stolt, treasurer. "They also have maintained good ongoing working relationships with the company," he added, explaining why the two banks were chosen. Wachovia and BANK ONE serve as syndication agent and administration agent, respectively.

BNP Paribas edged out existing lead Deutsche Bank and other relationship lenders on a $180 million refinancing for Oriental Trading by pitching the simplest structure and most attractive bid to the sponsor, Brentwood Associates. After deciding to do a refinancing earlier this year, Brentwood went out to key relationship banks and asked for responses to different structures, said Anthony Choe of Brentwood, who is also a director of Oriental Trading. "BNP was flexible in its approach to different considerations," he added, noting that the most appropriate was a plain-vanilla structure.

Buysiders are looking for the $300 million "B" term loan for Berry Plastics to be upsized in the wake of a bond market that has been looking a great deal sketchier for single-B issuers over the last few weeks. One investor said Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan could look to downsize the planned $275 million bond offering and upsize the "B" loan, especially since syndication of the "B" was five times oversubscribed. The 10-year note offering, which is rated B3/B, has been announced, but the date for pricing could not be ascertained. Officials at Goldman could not be reached by press time on a holiday-shortened week.

Tyco International's February 2003 bank debt rallied early last week, climbing from the 87-89 range to 91 1/293 1/2 after the company was able to complete its initial public offering of the CIT Group. The market buzzed about a $30 million trade of Tyco's bank debt, but many dealers were skeptical whether the trade took place. By last Wednesday, levels for the paper had dipped back to 89-91.

Macquarie Bank's planned equity raising of A$500m, related to the float of broadcast transmission tower assets formerly owned by NTL Australia, was yesterday (Thursday) cut to A$310m. But the Macquarie Commun-ications Infrastructure Group IPO will proceed on the original timing with a target listing date in mid-August.

Besides its Euromarket mortgage securitisation launched this week, Australian Mortgage Securities Ltd priced a second deal in the domestic market, parcelling the net revenue it earns from all the mortgages it finances. The A$95m deal, AMS's first net interest margin securitisation, was priced on target at 90bp over the one month bank bills swap rate, with a rating of A+ from Standard & Poor's (S&P).