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Schroder Salomon Smith Barney (SSSB) completed a £80m block trade in BHP Billiton, the Melbourne-based global mining company, on Tuesday. In a rare piece of activity on the European equity capital markets SSSB managed to price the deal at a tight discount of less than 1%. The 24.7m shares sold by De Beers Consolidated Mines were priced at 320p, just below the previous day's close of 323p. The sale of this stake, representing 1.1% of BHP Billiton, means that De Beers, which picked up the shares in an equity swap, has sold its entire holding in the company.

* Commerzbank AG Rating: Aa3/A+

Finland This week, Sampo extended its Nkr20.8bn (Eu2.6bn) offer for Storebrand, Norway's largest insurance group for the second time since the bid was launched in May 2001.

* Alliance & Leicester Group Treasury plc Guarantor: Alliance & Leicester plc

* Bayerische Landesbank Girozentrale Amount: Sfr200m lower tier two debt

Sumitomo Metal Industries has dropped Sumitomo Finance as a dealer off its $2 billion Euro-MTN programme. The programme was set up in 1994 and Goldman Sachs arranged it. The borrower has issued 19 yen trades off the facility. Sixteen of the notes are still outstanding and these are worth $291.78 million.

Two convertibles in the pharmaceuticals sector gave some life to the equity markets this week, with both transactions proving popular with investors. Teva Pharmaceuticals Healthcare sold its $300m convertible on Wednesday, with UK-based Shire Pharmaceuticals choosing to sell its $350m deal after the close in New York on Tuesday.

Tokyu Corporation has increased the amount of its ¥100 billion ($837.51 million) Euro-MTN programme to ¥200 billion. The arranger off the programme is Mizuho and the co-arranger is Tokyo-Mitsubishi. The programme was signed in 1996 and has 56 trades outstanding, which amount to $728.88 million.

A “double time bomb” threatens the European convertibles market, according to research published by Martin Haycock, head of European convertibles research at UBS Warburg, this week.

A “double time bomb” threatens the European convertibles market, according to research published by Martin Haycock, head of European convertibles research at UBS Warburg, this week.

Bank of Scotland is set to launch the £70m LBO loan for Albion Chemicals Ltd in the next two weeks. Albion is a management buy-in vehicle established for the acquisition of Hays plc's non-core chemical activities, by Peter Savage. The loan is split between a £50m seven year amortising 'A' loan, a £10m eight year bullet repayment 'B' loan and a £10m seven year revolver. The pro rata tranches carry a margin of 225bp over Libor. The margin on the 'B' loan is 275bp over Libor. In addition the revolver pays a commitment fee of 75bp. Hays plc's chemical business profits for the year to end June 2000 were £17.67m. Barclays, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (joint bookrunner), Goldman Sachs (joint bookrunner) and HSBC will sign the dual-tranche Eu3.5bn acquisition loan for Gallaher today (Friday). The leads have brought in a 20 strong banking group. Momentum for the deal picked up following some slow responses in syndication, marked down to the holiday period and the borrower's problematic business sector. The loan is split between two facilities, a Eu2bn and a £900m facility, which are then divided into three tranches: an 18 month tranche: a three year tranche and a five year tranche. The longer dated tranches will be used to refinance facilities of the two companies. The short term tranche is to finance the acquisition. The margin is 110bp out of the box with a 20bp utilisation fee. The deal supports tobacco group Gallaher's purchase of Austria Tabac.

United Overseas Bank (UOB) has fulfilled market expectations by announcing plans to debut with a subordinated deal of an unprecedented maturity in the domestic market. The transaction will back its S$10bn ($5.73bn) cash and stock offer for Overseas Union Bank (OUB). JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch, together with UOB Asia itself, will joint lead manage a S$750m 15 year non-call 10 tier two sub debt issue, which has the potential to increase to S$1bn.