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JP Morgan veteran Rene Vanguestaine has joined New York advisory firm Broadgate Consultants. Vanguestaine spent 32 years at JP Morgan, where he focused on the bank’s American depository receipt (ADR) business.

Unibanco - Uniao de Bancos Brasileiros (Unibanco) has closed a $10 million non-syndicated trade, its third of this kind this year. The three-year trade pays a final coupon of 8.5%. So far it has issued 18 trades in 2001, all denominated in dollar. Unibanco funds almost entirely in US dollar - just 16 of the 646 issued off its $2 billion Euro-MTN programme, which was signed in 1993, were in currencies other than US dollar.

Caisse Nationale Des Caisses d'Epargne et de Prevoyance issued four notes in 2000, having signed its euro10 billion ($9.14 billion) Euro-MTN programme in September, but has already more than trebled that activity this year. Its most recent note is a ¥1 billion ($8.63 million) multi-callable CMS-linked note. The call option is available every 6 months and the coupon is based on the 10-year yen swap rate minus the two-year yen swap rate. BNP Paribas was bookrunner and the note matures in March 2011. Cyril Bonnet, part of the capital markets department at the issuer, says: "We find a lot of interest in Japan for our paper. You are constrained to doing structured notes, but we're happy to do them."

For the first time this year the US high grade corporate bond market suffered indigestion this week, with about $18bn of corporate and agency issuance hitting the market or being added to the pipeline. Apart from Fannie Mae's $11.5bn two tranche issue, more than $9bn of high grade deals was announced. On top of that, France Télécom is preparing a $7bn-$8bn multi-tranche, multi-currency global for early March and AT&T Wireless is expected to raise $4bn-$5bn in the week ahead.

Despite localised difficulties in the high yield market this week - in particular a further loss of value on UK shipbuilder Cammell Laird's Eu125m 12% 2010 issue - bankers said conditions remain good for new issues and that borrowers such as Callahan Nordrhein-Westfalen (CNRW) are expected to tap the market over the coming weeks. Cammell Laird's issue fell to around 20% of face value after it emerged that a $500m contract with US cruise ship Luxus was almost certain to founder, following a statement from the chairman of Luxus that a possible UK government aid package guaranteeing loans to the company "offered impossible terms".

* AIG SunAmerica Institutional Funding II Rating: Aaa/AAA

Candover, the UK venture capital firm that is set to raise a new equity fund of up to Eu2.5bn, has officially acquired French frozen food retailer Picard Surgelés for Eu920m. Closing of the takeover took place earlier this week and it now falls to UBS Warburg, as sole lead arranger, to syndicate the Eu350m of senior leveraged debt facilities into the market. The senior debt comprises a Eu250m term loan (tranche 'A') at 225bp over Euribor, a Eu75m term loan (tranche 'B') at 275bp and a Eu25m revolving credit that carries a margin of 225bp. In addition to the senior debt, UBS Warburg and Intermediate Capital Group have jointly underwritten a Eu122m mezzanine tranche and Eu39.6m of PIK notes.

As a second crisis looms for Turkey only three months after the last, with a forced flotation of the currency, a spike in overnight rates and threats of ratings downgrades, activity on the primary international markets has been put on ice, as participants await clearer signals.

Arranger Standard Bank has closed the popular $45m three year term loan for HBOR, Croatia’s 100% government owned development and export bank. After an oversubscription the deal was increased from $35m.

Members of the Croatian government have been in London today roadshowing their intended Eu500m probable 10 year Eurobond, with support from lead managers Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan. The presentation demonstrated the Baa3/BBB- rated country’s healthy macroeconomic credentials, but also reeled out a long list of promised structural reforms, showing that the republic still has some way to go before it fulfills its self-proclaimed target of “full integration with the EU”.

Credit Suisse First Boston and Banca IMI pulled off the first ever Italian accelerated bookbuild at the end of last week with the Eu2.7bn sale of shares in energy company Eni. The lead managers attracted enough interest to cover the book 1.5 times and price the deal at a slim discount of 1.7%.

A huge mushroom shaped cloud hangs over 11, Madison Avenue, the beleaguered house of Credit Suisse First Boston. Has someone dropped a nasty bomb on our CSFB friends? The ambulance crews representing New York's finest tell us there may be many casualties on the executive floor. President George W Bush is said to be watching the situation with some concern. What is the cause for all the police sirens? Who gives a fig anyway about CSFB, a more secretive institution than the Vatican or Mediobanca and one which has led many a curious observer up the garden path and round the mulberry bush like a bewildered Taiwanese tourist.