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Putting some Bada Bing in the ratings game ... Moody's Investors Service's cocktail reception at the W in Union Square turned some heads or caused some blushing. The cocktail waitresses at the event took business casual to a whole new level. Let's just say there weren't many Aaas walking around.

Steven Jones, director fixed-income at Missouri Valley Partners, will swap $50 million, or 5% of the firm's portfolio, out of mortgage-backed securities into short-term corporates in order to avoid negative convexity given his concern over potentially spiking interest rates. Jones' reasoning is to avoid holding pass-throughs that will roll up the steep curve and lengthen in duration as interest rates rise. There is no trigger for this move, besides his assumption that the economy will improve, leading interest rates to move up.

This chart, provided by Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney Inc., tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities that trade in the secondary market. It also tracks facility amounts, ratings, pricing and maturities.

BNP Paribas Asset Management, which manages roughly E46 billion in fixed-income assets from its Paris office, plans to sell five-year government bonds across the board and buy only French government bonds in expectation of an imminent rate cut from the European Central Bank. Claude Guerin, portfolio manager, anticipates a 50 basis points cut from the ECB, which he says will cause the five-year portion of the yield curve to steepen and for the curve to flatten between the five- to 10-year area, because inflation will drop.

Click here to download the complete CDOs: Challenges and Changes supplement. (in pdf format)

EuropeLoan, an Internet mortgage provider based in Belgium, is planning to bring a residential mortgage-backed securitization to market in January, according to a firm official. The size and currency of the deal could not be learned by press time. EuropeLoan's last deal was priced in May and denominated in Swedish kroner as the collateral pool was Swedish mortgages. Barclays Capital was the lead manager on that deal. EuropeLoan also offers mortgages in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland.

The term loan "B" for Fleming Companies held its ground this week despite admissions from the company that it was the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission informal inquiry. While the company's bonds and stock stumbled on the news, bank debt traders brushed it off and said that the "B" paper did not change hands and was still quoted in the 97-98 range. "Everyone gets investigated these days," said one dealer.

Fremont Partners and lead agent bank UBS Warburg opted for a non-aggressive pricing structure to help syndicate the $160 million credit facility backing the $300 million acquisition of Nellson Nutraceutical, an Irwindale, Calif., nutrition bar and product maker. Oversubscription during syndication enabled UBS to flex pricing down and increase the size of the loan by $15 million.

A Greek private equity fund-of-funds will use securitization as a means of raising assets for investment. The fund, called Taneo, will securitize future revenues such as dividends from the various investments it makes, says Nicole Downer, head of corporate securitizations at Deutsche Bank in London. Deutsche Bank is co-lead managing the deal securitization, which will net the fund roughly E100 million.

Last week was solid once again in high-yield, with improvements in a number of distressed credits and sectors such as telecom and airlines. The new issue calendar continued to gain momentum, with a 10-year $300 million deal at 9.25% from Allied Waste. Here is other action.

The Seaport Group, a research and relationship driven brokerage boutique, is beefing up its efforts in dealing with off-the-run bank loans and large loan sales, trade claims and the equity of reorganized companies, said Marc Baum, chief operating officer. The firm has been increasing its staff to support these efforts, adding Terry Horn, senior v.p., to work with bank loans, John Sosnowski as v.p. of research and I-Wen Lim as a research associate.

Bradford & Bingley, one of the U.K.'s largest mortgage lenders, is readying a term securitization program, which it plans to launch in the fourth quarter next year. Peter Green, director of treasury and balance sheet management, says securitization will be the firm's primary source of funding going forward, because the strength of its collateral provides for efficient secured funding. Bradford & Bingley has completed one £1 billion securitization of residential mortgages to date.