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Parma AC, the Italian football club controlled by Parmalat, will today (Friday) close a Eu95m securitisation of sponsorship, advertising, trade-mark licensing and television rights. Lead managed by Abaxbank, the deal is the first Italian sports receivables securitisation to emerge since Merrill Lynch's two ticket receivables private transactions for Lazio and Fiorentina in 1997 and 1998, worth Lit50bn and Lit67.5bn respectively.

Metronet, the preferred bidder for two of the London Underground infrastructure companies, is preparing a £1.2bn structured bond issue to finance part of a £7bn investment under the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme. Earlier this week Metronet signed a share purchase agreement to replace and upgrade services on the Bakerloo, Central, Victoria and Waterloo & City lines, as well as the Metropolitan, District, Circle, Hammersmith & City and East London lines over the next seven years, starting this summer.

Linea, the Italian consumer finance company owned by Cofinoga, last week launched a Eu350m securitisation of personal and car loans. Lead managed by Deutsche Bank, the issue follows several large securitisations in the sector this quarter, including deals from Italease and Compass, via BNP Paribas and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. The deal was oversubscribed and hit early price talk, coming at the wide end at the triple-A level.

Deutsche Bank has hired Shingo Tadakoro, head of equity derivatives trading at Daiwa Securities SMBC in Tokyo, as a senior equity derivatives trader, according to Tadaaki Tano, general manager of the planning division in the products section at Daiwa. "At Daiwa he was one of the biggest players in the OTC index products market," said a rival at Nomura Securities.

Steve Kohlhagen, a former University of California, Berkeley professor who built the fixed income derivatives business at Wachovia Securities, is ending his decade-long stint as head of all fixed income sales and trading for derivatives and cash at the Charlotte, N.C.-based firm. Kohlhagen, 54, said he will be leaving Wachovia in August to pursue a career writing mystery novels with his wife, Gale. "I spent 10 years at Berkeley and 10 on Wall Street, it's time to move on," he said. However, he has agreed to stay on board through the last half of 2002 to continue overseeing risk management for the fourth largest financial holding company in the U.S. and help it to find a successor for his position. "We've already started searching for a successor to head the division in Charlotte," Kohlhagen said.

ON Semiconductor continued to trade up to 97 this week after the company announced it would complete a bond deal. Bids have been rising over the past month with more than $100 million changing hands, dealers said. One analyst referred to the name as a "dead cat rising," after discussing how the credit traded as low as 68. Calls to John Kurtzweil, senior v.p. and cfo, were referred to a spokesman who did not return calls by press time.

The European Investment Bank, Freddie Mac and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau have such large borrowing requirements that they need to maintain access to diverse sources of funding. As a result, they are three of a rare breed of top quality issuer that has a regular presence in the euro market. Sebastian Boyd reports on how the trio of triple-A issuers are making the best of their commitment to the euro.

Governments might be expected to find financing in their home market easy, but with a dozen governments competing for the attention of euro investors, Euroland's sovereigns are being forced to work hard. And while the argument for syndicated transactions is winning over more issuers, the debate over the best way to use the system is far from over. Neil Day reports on how Euroland's sovereigns are fighting to stay ahead of the pack.

Who'd be an agency or supranational treasurer? Swap spreads in both euros and dollars are so tight that, for many top quality issuers, borrowing in the public markets is often uneconomic. For others, arbitrage opportunities are few and far between. Here, Sebastian Boyd examines the macro-economic factors driving swap spreads and considers the options for smaller agency and supranational issuers.

Bank One, with assets of over USD260 million, has closed its strategic risk management advisory department in London, according to Fred Stambaugh, senior v.p. and head of currency risk management. The department had five staff, including three quants. Jessica James, director and head of the department, and Chris Attfield, director, both opted for redundancy and Rob Tanner, a quant, has moved to Chicago to join the risk management advisory group, according to officials. Matt Matthews, head of the risk management advisory group in Chicago, declined comment.