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Latin new issues began to trickle back into the market this week and the deal pipeline started to grow again after a fortnight of Argentine induced volatility kept investors on the sidelines. Banco BBA Creditanstalt issued a $100m 18 month Eurobond via BNP Paribas and Standard Bank. It was increased from $75m after offering a very attractive 7.629% yield to maturity, at the lower end of its 7.625%-7.875% range.

There are some outrageous photos being passed round the Morgan Stanley trading floor after a big group of traders, along with the syndicate and origination desks, went off skiing in the French Alps last weekend. Anyone who emails Leak a picture of Klaus Svendsen, Deborah Loades or Frair Appelby-Walker will get one of Leak's famous mystery prizes - the funnier the photo the more memorable the prize will be. Other dealers haven't been having so much fun. The IPMA dinner last week proved to be less than a barrel of laughs. But one anonymous trader's main complaint was not the monotonous after-dinner speech, but the lack of pretty girls on his table. This seems to be a common problem in the man's world of MTNs. But the SNS Bank treasurers get over this problem quite easily. Apparently when they had their rally driving day a few weeks ago, all the attractive women ended up sharing cars with... the SNS guys. Purely by chance of course.

The Republic of Lebanon launched a $1bn five year Eurobond on Friday, but BNP Paribas — sole bookrunner alongside joint leads ABN Amro and Salomon Smith Barney — had to lean heavily on the republic’s domestic banking sector to get away a deal $400m larger than initial talk.

Bankers this week were looking towards a possible jumbo buy-out facility for Yell, the yellow pages subsidiary of British Telecommunications (BT). BT is thought to be in exclusive talks with private equity groups Apax Partners and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst about the sale of the business, which is valued at about £3bn.

Metsä-Serla, the Finnish pulp and paper company, completed its Eu245m equity issue on Monday while stockmarkets were dropping. The stock rose 2.5% during bookbuilding and has remained above issue price since completion, making the deal unusually successful for such conditions.

Egypt EuroWeek hears that Banque du Caire has mandated Fuji Bank and ABC to arrange a $300m three year term loan. Further details will be available next week.

* Coleen Kaiser, a software and technology equity analyst who topped the Institutional Investor 2001 All-Europe research poll, has moved to Lehman Brothers, along with key members of her team. Brian Skiba, the existing senior IT software analyst, is leaving. Kaiser brings with her Peter McNally, a former Charles Schwab margins analyst who specialises in interactive TV; Simon Andrews, who covers internet infrastructure; and Henrik Schmidt.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter signed a $5 billion asset-backed MTN programme, under the name of Spices Finance. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter is the arranger and sole dealer off the programme.

National Australia Bank has increased the limit off its Euro-MTN shelf from $7.5 billion to $15 billion.

The sharp falls in the Neuer Markt claimed two more victims this week as the IPOs of both Müller Logistik and Conergy were pulled. The Eu25m-Eu35m IPO of Conergy, the German producer of renewable energy systems, was pulled yesterday (Thursday) on the last day of bookbuilding.

Botswana Botswana has received long term ratings from Standard & Poor's. The agency assigned the African sovereign A for foreign currency and A+ for local currency issues.

France A Novo, the French industrial maintenance service for mass-market high-tech equipment, was forced to cut its convertible issue by 47% last week, raising Eu80m.