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The International Primary Market Association (IPMA) has taken a bold step to cement its presence in the Asian region by announcing the creation of an Asian committee at Euromoney’s Asia Pacific Issuers and Investors Forum that is being held in Hong Kong today (Tuesday) and Wednesday.

John Moore, who until recently headed the agency desk at JP Morgan, has followed former colleague Kelley Millet to Bear Stearns to take up responsibility for frequent issuers.

Merrill Lynch and Commerzbank have brought out the much awaited inaugural Eu150m FRN for Kredyt Bank of Poland, despite difficult market conditions. The bond offers a coupon of Euribor plus 40bp, and was priced 99.916. Lead banks said pricing had been complicated by adverse secondary market movements in the sovereign curve, and in European high yield debt generally.

Korea Electric Power Corp (Kepco) is poised to ask a number of banks for requests for proposal (RFPs) for a new yen denominated bond issue.

The loan market this week showed its ability to support jumbo acquisition financings as two of the deals in the market - the £3.6bn facility for Lafarge and the Eu5bn loan for Pernod Ricard - closed heavily oversubscribed after just the first round of syndication. The Eu5bn facility backing Pernod Ricard's shared purchase of Seagram's drinks businesses has closed after a blowout first round of syndication. The facility is more than 100% oversubscribed at the underwriting level and will not be launched to general syndication. Banks will be signed in over the next week.

Chile

The market and its dog is off skiing. But Chris Jones from Deutsche was none too happy when he lost his skis as soon as he arrived. Too many pre-ski toddies maybe? He was left with no alternative but to play around in the snow while the others had fun. And UBS's happy boyband has been off slaloming down the slopes with Tara Palmer-Tomkinson (just to give an idea of the circles Gavin Eddy and Sam Cowan move in). But despite making it down the black slope, Sam has done his back in while practising a much more energetic sport: yoga. He took the lotus position too far and has ended up flat on his back for a few days. And the latest newsflash from Rupert Lewis's ski hideaway is that he's dyed his hair a lovely shade of blonde and permed it too. Nice. And Deutsche has a new recruit. Handsome Abdul Hussein is on the bank's graduate trainee programme and will be learning all the tricks of the trade from Alex Haidas and Tiina Lee.

Turkish syndicated loan specialists are still no clearer on the state of the market, despite the latest economic crisis rolling into its third week. With Turkey's 31st largest bank, Ulusal, falling under the control of the Banking Supervisory Board in late February, international lenders are in a holding position on Turkey. "We are still in wait and see mode," said one veteran Turkey specialist yesterday (Thursday). "Nobody wants to jump in first, especially after Ulusal Bank and Demir Bank." Demir Bank went into state administration only two weeks after it signed a $140m loan in December. "We are now seeing shockwaves of what Turkey has been attempting in terms of rationalisation and the restructuring of the economy," the banker added.

Merrill Lynch’s asset management arm, Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, has named Mary Taylor as co-head for the Americas region.

UK chancellor Gordon Brown's acceptance of recommendations contained in the Myner's report that the Minimum Funding Requirement (MFR) be abolished should prove to be good news for sterling denominated corporate debt in the long term. Gilt yields, which at the long end of the curve have plummeted to below 5% in the last couple of years, will now lose the support of the MFR. In future, a bond yield composite index of Gilts and sterling investment grade bonds will govern this activity. Many sterling market specialists are therefore predicting greater issuance of corporate bonds on the back of the new bid for such paper. But there has been little impact so far.