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Credit Suisse First Boston has hired Tony Kearney as a director in global account sales. He joins the London office in April from JP Morgan, where he was a hedge fund currency marketer. Kearney will report to the co-heads of global treasury product sales, David Newman and Rusty Elvidge.

Cazenove and Mediobanca suffered at the hands of shattered investor confidence as they were forced to price the Eu52m IPO of Datalogic below the bookbuilding range yesterday (Thursday). The deal priced at Eu20, more than 10% below the bottom of the subscription spread of Eu22.5-Eu28. "Very few people are willing to take a risk in these markets," said a banker close to the deal. The sentiment is becoming a common refrain across Europe. The Nuovo Mercato, where shares in Datalogic will start trading on Wednesday, plummeted more than 10% during bookbuilding. It now sits nearly 30% below its high for 2001.

Mexico completed its par-for-par $3.3bn global bond exchange offer on Friday within the prearranged terms, despite the volatility in emerging markets resulting from Argentina’s continuing political and economic troubles.

MGPE's £1.59bn facility is unlikely to remain the largest buy-out financing for long. Although the facility beats the long awaited Eu1.8bn (£1.13bn) buy-out for Messer Greisheim and the DM1.1bn loan backing Apax Partners' acquisition of Bundersdrükerie, the market is closely watching the bidding for Henkel's Cognis, valued at Eu3bn-Eu3.5bn. According to CapitalData Loanware, the number of LBO and MBO facilities over the first quarter of 2001 has been high with over 118 deals, totalling $12.3bn, launched into the Euromarket and many more in bidding or pre-launch. This is compared with 93 deals launched in January to March 2000, totalling $7.5bn.

Michael Page had to price the UK’s biggest IPO of 2001 under the bookbuilding range today (Wednesday), but managed to complete the offering despite difficult equity markets and pressure from private equity bids.

The book for the £825m IPO of executive recruitment firm Michael Page is almost covered, with three days of bookbuilding to go. Some investors are holding out to see how the markets develop, and some still need convincing that the company is not overexposed to vulnerable economies, but good accounts keep placing orders. The company has two teams, one in the US and one in Europe, and is waiting to see how much demand the US team can attract. "It is going to come down to the last one or two days," said a banker close to the deal.

Oman The sub-underwriting phase of the syndication of the $348.6m project financing for the Barka Independent Water and Power Project has been successfully wrapped up by lead arrangers ANZ Investment Bank and ABC, although the leads are waiting to hear back from one further bank.

* Former JP Morgan Securities' loans syndication chief Michael Mauer has gone to Salomon Smith Barney to head the US loans syndicate, reporting to Chad Leat, global head of loans. It is a new position. At JP Morgan, Mauer covered loan syndication for the US and Latin America.

The equity markets put participants through yet more pain this week, as stock prices across the globe reacted viciously to the US Federal Reserve's decision to lower interest rates by 50bp. The Nasdaq fell 4.8% on Tuesday, when the announcement was made, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average 2.4%. The bad sentiment continued throughout the week, with the FTSE 100 and the Dax 30 indices both losing more than 4% yesterday (Thursday).

On March 21 2001, MTNWeek hosted its Awards 2001 dinner in the Hyatt Carlton Tower in Knightsbridge. A detailed description of the decisions that were made and the imbibing that followed will be available later today. Best new Euro-MTN borrower 2001: Kommunalbanken Best Euro-MTN borrower 2001: Svensk Exportkredit Best new Euro-CP borrower 2001: Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank Most enterprising Euro-MTN house 2001: Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Most enterprising Euro-CP house 2001: Goldman Sachs Best IPA for Euro-MTNs 2001: Deutsche Bank Best IPA for Euro-CPs 2001: Citibank Best Euro-CP house 2001: Deutsche Bank Best Euro-MTN house 2001: Merrill Lynch Star of the Leak table 2001: Gavin Eddy

Croatia The IMF has officially approved a $255m standby credit for the Republic of Croatia.

Finland Metsa-Serla, the Finnish pulp and paper company, is attracting some good interest for its Eu300m equity issue, led by Schroder Salomon Smith Barney. There are six or seven investors already in the book with another 10 days of bookbuilding to go. There has been a lot of interest from the UK and US.