Search results for

Guarantor: Alpha Bank AE Rating: Baa2/BBB-/BBB

Rating: Ba3 Amount: $500m

Arrangers ANZ Investment Bank and Deutsche Bank have invited relationship banks into a A$400m three year term loan for CSL, a distributor and manufacturer of biological pharmaceutical products. Banks will receive a margin that initially starts at 80bp over BBSY and is linked to a debt/Ebdita grid.

Which fund managers do we admire? Not very many. Generally they are a rum bunch whose personal taste and excitement levels remind you of inadvertently munching blotting-paper. However, please come in Nicola Horlick, a superstar stockmarket crystal ball gazer for the otherwise forgettable Société Générale Asset Management, caring mother and much more besides.

Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA Amount: Sfr300m

BHW Bausparkasse returned to the KfW-sponsored Provide programme this week with a Eu1.5bn securitisation of residential mortgages. Lead managed by SG, the deal is BHW's second deal under the KfW-sponsored programme this year, after a Eu1.24bn synthetic securitisation in February, also via SG.

IntesaBci breathed life into the Italian collateralised debt obligation market last week with a Eu4bn synthetic securitisation, shedding risk on a portfolio of senior secured and unsecured loans. The transaction was lead managed by Caboto-IntesaBci and Merrill Lynch. Intesa was an early pioneer in the Italian synthetic market and is still the only regular issuer. The bank closed the first public Italian balance sheet CDO Scala 1 in November 1999, and two further arbitrage synthetics, Scala 2 and 3, backed by credit derivatives from its trading book in December 2000 and June 2001. It later launched the first ever public securitisation of aircraft loans, Leonardo, in May last year for $1bn.

EMASESA, the regional water utility owned by the city of Seville, this week closed an innovative financing of water receivables in a deal that highlights the growing sophistication of Spanish regional entities. The company has sold future receivables from water improvement fees it charges its customers to four banks - Dexia Sabadell Banco Local, and three savings banks El Monte, Unicaja and Caja San Fernando - allowing it to directly fund its future infrastructure and water treatment improvements without increasing its net borrowing.

The UK government's PFI scheme returned to familiar territory this week as BNP Paribas closed a £372m index-linked bond to fund a new hospital - the largest bond yet in the asset class and the biggest PFI deal so far this year. Wrapped by MBIA, the bond will provide the Skanska/Innisfree consortium with funding to design, construct, equip and maintain new facilities for the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust. The hospital, due to be completed within six years, will be the largest hospital built in the UK in the last three decades. Like several of the previous eight hospital securitisations closed since 1997, the deal is index-linked, allowing the borrowers to match their liabilities with revenues, which are linked to inflation.

UK mortgage lender Mortgages PLC this week continued the traditional year-end rush of non-conforming RMBS with a £257m securitisation of owner-occupied and buy-to-let mortgages. The transaction was lead managed by Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers - the same banks that closed the company's last issue. The deal follows a busy quarter for the non-conforming mortgage sector, with Kensington Mortgage, Preferred Mortgages and Southern Pacific Mortgages all closing deals. Spreads in the asset class have widened since Preferred came to market in late September, and one established buy-to-let lender, Paragon Group, even chose this week to postpone an issue until next year due to market conditions.

SNS Bank Nederland returned to its established Hermes programme this week with a Eu1.12bn securitisation of residential mortgages, lead managed by ABN Amro and JP Morgan. SNS has been a regular issuer in the ABS market since October 1999 with over Eu3.8bn of mortgages outstanding, and the latest deal was marketed with just two weeks of roadshows and sold to around 25 investors.

VR Leasing, the leasing specialist for Germany's co-operative banking movement in Germany, this week launched a Eu174.5m synthetic securitisation of finance lease contracts. DZ Bank, the co-operative banks' central bank, lead managed the deal, buying at closing a portfolio of loans from VR and transferring the risk through a default swap with the SPV. The top three tranches of public notes are invested in DZ's own covered bonds structured specifically for the deal, rated triple-A.