Search results for

Rating: Aa1/AAA Amount: C$100m

HSBC's head of desk, Fergus "king of the Hong Kong markets" Kiely, has returned from a two week break in Cyprus feeling tanned, relaxed and slightly married. Fergus jetted his family and a few choice friends off to the Cypriot mountains to tie the knot. Leak understands he exchanged vows in view of an ancient amphitheatre and then chartered a boat for the reception. Unfortunately the water got a little choppy and a few of his guests, who Leak suspects were already a little sloshed, got wet.

Mediobanca has sold 6.5% of Ferrari to Lehman Brothers for Eu148.2m, following the Italian bank's acquisition of 34% of the luxury car manufacturer from Fiat in June. Since Mediobanca made its acquisition, which allowed Fiat to delay its flotation of Ferrari until at least 2003, it has been looking for institutions with which to share the financing costs.

Corporate credits waiting in the pipeline for issuance in the next couple of weeks will have taken heart from the resounding success enjoyed by Deutsche Post and the more positive sentiment that crept back into the market this week. However, investor appetite for lesser quality credits is about to be tested by, among others, BBB- rated Parmalat, which is in the wings with a Eu300m-Eu500m five year bond to be lead managed by Citigroup/SSSB, Credit Suisse First Boston and UBM. The issue is being talked at 230bp-235bp over mid-swaps and should be launched next week.

Rating: A2/A/A+ Amount: $200m

Are they changing the guard in the debt capital markets division of Merrill Lynch? The whisper on the grapevine is that David Lund, the very bright young hotshot from the Tokyo office who moved to New York with new fixed income supremo Dow Kim, is no longer on his perch. This must have taken even Merrill insiders by surprise because David Lund seemed as if he could walk on water and feed loaves and fishes to a cast of thousands.

Amount: A$211m Legal maturity: March 15, 2005

There was more activity this week in a storming primary market than in any week since March. More than $20bn of investment grade supply was issued in the dollar market and over Eu12.5bn came to the euro sector. But markets remain volatile, more so following yesterday's (Thursday) fall in the Dow Jones to below 8,000 for the second time since July.

The dollar sector was the only one of the major currencies to see a slight dip in issuance on last week's levels. But 82 trades were still executed, with UK and French borrowers being particularly strong.

Over $2bn was traded in the euro market this week and Dutch borrowers were the most active, issuing 10 of the 71 trades. Fortis issued four notes from its recently updated EuroMTN programme (see MTN news page) Fortis Finance closed one of these four notes: a Eu20m one year note via Citigroup/SSSB. Fortis's three notes totalled Eu73m. ING Bank, Rabobank Nederland and SNS bank all closed Eu10m deals.

Trading in the EuroMTN markets was stronger this week than for some time, and this was reflected in the yen market as 116 trades were issued. Repackaged entities were especially busy issuing a fifth of the week's overall yen volume. Goldman Sachs was particularly active, closing four trades off its Signum $10bn secured note programme. The trades, issued through Signum, Signum Amber and Signum Hazel, total ¥3.02bn. Nomura SPV, Rosetta, closed the largest yen trade from this issuer type: a ¥3.3bn note that reaches out to March 1 2017.

Compiled by Richard Favis, RBC Capital Markets, Johannesburg Tel: +27 11 784 5065