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Société Générale has landed the lead role on bank deals for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association's Charlotte Hornets, the first deals being led by SG since the departure of Sal Galatioto and his sports advisory group to Lehman Brothers last year. Randy Campbell replaced Galatioto last year from Morgan Stanley to re-launch the sports advisory group.

Standard & Poor's has recently completed a reorganiztion of its structured products division in New York, creating three new groups, according to BW sister publication Derivatives Week. The new groups are fixed income, equity and an operating vehicle group, according to Richard Gugliada, head of the global CDO group in New York. The three new groups report to Gugliada.

Stephen Smithruns the $1.8 billion global bond fund at Wilmington, Del.-based Brandywine Asset Management. While the fund is global in scope, Smith says it can invest in corporate credits, mortgage- and asset-backed bonds and government bonds with no rating or country specific allocation issues. An 11-year veteran of Brandywine, Smith has been in the portfolio management business since 1967.

Credit Lyonnais, U.S. Bank and Citibank have joined on the refinancing for Arch Coal and Arch Western Resources at the co-documentation level. J.P. Morgan and PNC Bank are leading the deal and a banker familiar with the syndication said J.P. Morgan has committed $70 million and PNC bank $90 million. Documentation agents have committed $60 million each to the deal. An additional commitment has been received from Bank of New York. The $525 million "B" has already gained more than $100 million after launching on March 5, with Van Kampen Merritt and Institutional Debt Management among the buyers.

UBS Warburg has hired Jeff Keith, a senior high-yield salesman. Keith will report to Steve Chronert, head of high-yield sales based in New York. Keith was released in December from Merrill Lynch, which has made severe cutbacks to its high-yield effort in recent months (BW, 12/16).

Abbey National Treasury Services (ANTS), part of one of Europe's largest banking groups and the U.K.'s sixth largest, is building a leveraged loan operation in the U.S. to be a buyer of credits in both the primary and secondary markets and possibly start up a collateralized debt obligation. The bank is looking to cash in on a negative credit cycle that is producing fairly conservative credits with attractive spreads. Hans Scholz senior v.p. acquisition finance, for ANTS based in Stamford, Conn., said John Sykes, a buyside pro, has been hired from PNC Business Credit. Clifford Wells has come aboard as a senior credit officer from Bank Austria Kreditanstalt this week. The plan is in the fall to hire a portfolio manager to round the team out.

The bondholder committee of financially distressed Dutch cable operator United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC) has tapped Greenhill & Co. as a financial advisor in its negotiations with the company. A member of the committee says Greenhill has been searching for a strategic investor to pay down a E1 billion exchangeable loan held by UPC parent UnitedGlobalCom (UGC). The committee member has expressed concern that UGC intends to use the loan to gain a disproportionate equity stake in the restructured company (BW, 2/11). He says several potential investors have expressed interest in paying down the loan. However, he would not name the investors. Michael Kramer, a partner in Greenhill's New York office working with the committee, did not return calls.

Russell Hurst, formerly head of collateralized debt obligation research at Wachovia Securities, has jumped ship and will assume the same function at Banc One Capital Markets, says Alessandro Pagani, asset backed-securities analyst with Banc One. Hurst will start next Monday. He will report to Alex Roever, managing director and head of structured debt research, who did not return calls.

Watts Industries refinanced its existing revolver a year before its March 2003 maturity to seize the opportunity to consolidate its outstanding U.S. and European loans and address near-term maturities. A E29 million piece of an ABN Amro and Intesa Bci-led E41.5 million multi-tranche credit was set to mature in March of this year. That debt and a FleetBoston Financial-led $100 million revolver helped fund the company's acquisitions. The new credit rolls both the $100 million domestic revolver and the E41.5 million European credit facility into one $150 million, three-year revolver led again by Fleet. "We felt it was easier to have one much larger line of credit," said William McCartney, cfo of Watts, adding, "I also have financing needs that needed to be addressed in Europe so I tied those in with the revolver."

This might turn out to be the most important issuance week of the year so far. In addition to the biggest corporate bond deal of the year (Weyerhaeuser's $5.5 billion multi-tranche offering), two of the most beleaguered names in the corporate bond market-Qwest and Sprint-accessed the market for $1.5 billion and $2.0 billion, respectively. (As of the time of this writing, the Sprint deal had yet to be priced so it is unclear whether the transaction will remain at $2.0 billion or increase in size.) The fact that these two companies could access the market in deals that were reportedly well oversubscribed has taken much of the fear of liquidity risk that has been hyped up in the financial press out of the market. While there are still important challenges ahead for these and the other high flyers of the 1990s, there is clearly also money available to these companies at a price. Total investment grade issuance for the week was $18.8 billion (not including Sprint), a 50% increase over the prior week. The emerging markets calendar was also very active, with Malaysia, Philippines and Brazil all pricing new deals that were increased in size from the original announcement.

Buyout firm WL Ross & Co. is in talks with lenders for a $150 million bank loan to partially fund its $325 million bid for the steelmaking assets of bankrupt LTV. Wilbur Ross, head of the firm, said a decision on the bank would be made within a week based on the interest rate, business conditions and the ratios banks are willing to work with. He declined to name the banks in with a shot of funding the deal. The acquisition, which calls for $125 million in cash and the assumption of $200 million in environmental liabilities, is being funded with $80 million of equity, while LTV's financial adviser is The Blackstone Group.