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The Republic of Bulgaria has reached a new agreement with the Russian Federation over the repayment of $100m of debt. According to Bulgarian head of debt management Krassimir Katev, Bulgaria took the initiative. "We initiated this as we are the creditor," Katev said. "We started from a very bad situation due to an agreement made by previous governments in 1995."

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Commerzbank has denied reports that it is planning to sell Jupiter, its UK retail investment management arm. The German bank, which has been looking at ways to cut costs, has highlighted its asset management business as one area where it might be able to make savings, but it said yesterday (Thursday) that talk of a sale of Jupiter was premature.

Man Group, the UK-based hedge fund investment company, has appointed Chris Chambers, the former co-head of European equity capital markets at Credit Suisse First Boston, as chief executive of Man Investment Products. Chambers, who left CSFB on Wednesday, joins Man this month to spearhead its growing presence in the alternative investment product market. Man has more than doubled its assets under management in the last two years. Its funds have grown from $4.7bn under management in March 2000 to over $10bn.

CVRD, the privatised Brazilian iron ore and mining conglomerate, will today (Friday) price a $300m five year bond carrying political risk insurance, the first of a number of structured Latin corporate bonds pricing this week. Other deals ready for pricing include a $250m five year future flow MT-100 export receivables transaction by Brazil's Banco Itau and a $100m eight year MT-100 and family remittances deal by Banco Agricola of El Salvador. Unibanco of Brazil has also just mandated Deutsche Bank to underwrite a $200m 10 year subordinated debt issue with some form of convertibility risk insurance.

Continuing its efforts to build up a comprehensive Asian franchise , Deutsche Bank has appointed Jonathan Paul as chairman of global markets Asia Pacific and hired Philip Mok to be head of Greater China equity research. Paul's new responsibilities will be in addition to his role as head of Asian global market sales. Part of his new title will be to help manage Deutsche Bank's business initiatives across the whole of Asia Pacific and Japan, together with taking a senior client relationship role. Paul reports to Anshu Jain, head of global markets.

Deutsche Bank has set up a new corporate governance unit to give more guidance to its analysts covering emerging market stocks. The unit will be led by Renato Grandmont, a Deutsche Latin American strategist who conducted research last year to find the best corporate governance in Latin America.

Private equity group Dresdner Kleinwort Capital (DrKC) and recruitment consultancy Pedersen & Partners have teamed up again to launch a management buy-out/management buy-in (MBO/MBI) club in Hungary. The two firms had linked up to launch a similar venture in Poland at the end of last year.

The German cartel office's rejection of Deutsche Telekom's planned Eu5.5bn cable sale to Liberty Media led to renewed speculation this week over the Eu10bn flotation of T-Mobile. Both Moody's and Standard & Poor's (S&P) put the operator on review for downgrade, citing the failure to sell the cable assets and the uncertainty over the T-Mobile IPO.

Croatia Joint mandated arrangers Mizuho (Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank) and Zagrebacka banka are preparing to launch a $100m syndicated medium tenor term loan for Industrija Nafte (INA), a 100% state owned oil and gas company.

National Bank of Egypt is set to test market appetite for Middle Eastern risk with a new $250m term loan. The loan, which is yet to be mandated, will be the first fully syndicated credit for an Egyptian borrower since September 11 2001.