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Mandated arrangers KBC, Rand Merchant Bank and Standard Chartered will close syndication of the $210m four year facility for Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo (SNPC) next week once all commitments have been received. Five levels of participation are on offer: arranger for a take of $25m; co-arranger for $20m; lead manager for $15m; manager for $10m; and participant for $5m.

Eurotunnel this week completed the latest step in its debt restructuring programme with a £740m bond issue to refinance and repurchase junior and subordinated bank debt. Lead managed by Dresdner Kleinwort Wassserstein and Merrill Lynch, the offering marks the end of a complex structuring and marketing process that saw the tender offer price on subordinated debt widen and the bond structure tweaked to meet investor demand.

UBS Warburg will next week price a Eu750m securitisation of real estate equipment and industral leases for Banca Agrileasing, the bank that services Italy's co-operative network. Price talk for the Eu660m triple-A tranche is 39bp-40bp over Euribor, while the Eu78m single-A tranche is expected to come at around 100bp over.

French carmaker Peugeot returned to market this week with a Eu1.5bn securitisation of French and Spanish car loans. Lead managed by Crédit Agricole Indosuez and Credit Suisse First Boston, the deal is Peugeot's second public securitisation, following a Eu1bn debut offering in June 2001 via CAI and Deutsche Bank.

Credit Suisse First Boston and Caja Madrid brought a new asset class to the Spanish market last week with a Eu1.3bn synthetic securitisation of loans to consumers and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Synthetic securitisations are rare in Spain, partly because Spanish money market funds are unable to buy credit-linked notes. The transaction is thought to be the first deal in the consumer class.

ABN AMRO has hired Terri Duhon, credit trader and structurer at JPMorgan in London, as global head of credit structuring and origination, according to officials. Duhon reports to Arne Groes, head of credit derivatives in London, who confirmed her arrival, but declined to reveal her specific role. Duhon, who started Monday, declined comment.

Robert Heathcote, managing director and European head of credit derivatives at Goldman Sachs, is returning to structuring cash and synthetic collateralized-debt obligations. Heathcote has returned to structuring transactions because the firm wanted a senior banker in that position, according to Rebecca Nelson, spokeswoman. Heathcote will be working with Alastair Borthwick, managing director. Borthwick said his role has not changed and he has been working on structured transactions for the past year. Heathcote declined comment.

Morgan Stanley has hired Irene Rodriguez, a director of fixed-income derivatives sales to Latin American corporates at BNP Paribas in New York, as an executive director in a similar role. Rodriguez, who started a few weeks ago, confirmed the move and said she is looking forward to working at Morgan Stanley, where she will sell a range of fixed-income products such as interest-rate, credit and foreign exchange derivatives to Latin American end users for liability management purposes. She declined further comment.

Credit-default protection on Vivendi Universal rocketed over 400 basis points wider on Tuesday morning in London as Moody's Investors Service announced a downgrade of the media company's long-term debt to Ba1 from Baa3. Swap spreads for five-year protection on Vivendi closed Tuesday at approximately 1,100 basis points, compared to 640bps in the morning, said traders.

Glenn Barnes, Merrill Lynch's London-based head of European structured credit, has left the firm, according to senior Merrill officials. Dale Lattanzio, managing director and newly appointed European head of global principal investing and structured finance, has assumed Barnes' responsibilities. One insider said Merrill decided to eliminate Barnes' position to remove a layer of management, given the relatively small size of its European operation compared to the U.S.

Brunei is positioning itself as a regional – even international – financial hub, but what exactly is the sultanate's competitive advantage? Chris Wright reports.

Boon Chye Loh, head of Deutsche's global markets business for Asia, and Jonathan Paul, who is chairman of global markets for the whole region including Japan and Australia, are responsible for a wide range of businesses including debt capital markets, foreign exchange, cash and derivatives. And they face something of a PR challenge. It's this: the bulk of the bank's financial success in this area is scarcely visible to the financial media. Many magazines and wires cover primary debt issuance, particularly in the G3 or G7 currencies, and there Deutsche's recent record is only moderate. It has led successful deals for PLDT and Maybank out of the region this year, but it is a long way off the top in bond issuance from Asia. It missed out on the Petronas bond, the first euro-denominated bond from the region not to feature Deutsche as a lead, and doesn't look like it's punching its weight.