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The $50m five year facility for Union International de Banques (UIB) is due to be launched into the market today (Friday). ABC (facility agent) and Citigroup/SSB (bookrunner) are arranging the single-stage syndication.

Rating: A1/A+ Amount: Eu500m

Despite having just one $14.53 million trade outstanding off its euro2 billion ($1.87 billion) global MTN programme, Vivendi Universal has increased the debt limit four fold to euro8 billion. It has also bumped up the number of appointed dealers by adding Natexis Banques Populaires to the dealer panel. The other dealers on the panel are Banque Nationale de Paris, Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

EuroWeek understands that TXU Europe has quietly slipped into the market with a new £400m facility led by Royal Bank of Scotland and BayernLB. The deal is thought to be a two year LC facility carrying a margin of 100bp over Libor.

A1/A+ rated German car maker Volkswagen is preparing to launch its jumbo Eu15bn revolving credit facility next Thursday, a deal that will severely test the strength of the company’s relationships with its core banks and show the true value of ancillary business in the modern-day European syndicated loan market.

William Hill, the UK's second largest bookmaker, kicked off bookbuilding for its eagerly anticipated £472m IPO this week following in the footsteps of a hat-trick of UK IPOs that have traded up from their listing price in the last two weeks. There was a notable change in sentiment on the European syndicate desks this week after the successes of Wood Group (see separate story) and Intertek Testing Systems, which traded straight up after their debuts on the London Stock Exchange.

John Wood Group, the UK's largest oil services company, saw its shares soar on their first day of trading this week after a strong bookbuilding period enabled the company to price its £263m IPO at the high end of the pricing range. Wood Group closed yesterday (Thursday) at 216p, 11% above the offering price of 195p.

As we go to press there are suggestions of more Euromarket casualties. Can it be true that our friend, Kevin Regan, is no longer on his perch as head of sales at UBS Warburg? Kevin, who is a personal friend, seems to have been in the Euromarkets for ever and a day but in fact he is only 44 and in his prime. We suspect that he may have been a casualty of the major internal reshuffle at UBSW, but he is rich, has a lovely wife, a good tailor and will be snapped up before you can say "whatever became of Steve Oristaglio?". Also on the way to pastures new is Malcolm Wager who learned his trade at Morgan Stanley and, more recently, was the great white hope at ABN Amro. The Dutch bank is no longer an also-ran in fixed income and insiders say that Wager's performance was outstanding. We hear a story that he lost out in a fire-fight with Amsterdam, but will talk more on that subject, as well as the departure of Mr Regan, next week when the smoke has cleared.

DresdnerKleinwort Wasserstein will launch the £545m acquisition facility for YTL into general syndication in June. Sub-underwriters were signed in to the deal last week. (For more details on the deal, see last week's issue of EuroWeek.)

A1/A+ rated German car maker Volkswagen is preparing to launch its jumbo Eu15bn revolving credit facility next Thursday, a deal that will severely test the strength of the company’s relationships with its core banks and show the true value of ancillary business in the modern-day European syndicated loan market.

Vivendi Universal, the international media group, failed to shed any light on the possible timing of an anticipated sale of some 20% of Vivendi Environnement, its environmental services subsidiary, when the board met on Wednesday. The form in which the sale might take place is still unclear to the market and European equity syndicate bankers were speculating this week as to when any sale might emerge. "It could come next week, but then we might have to wait until after the summer," said one French ECM banker. "All we know is that the share price has the overhang factored into it and the market is expecting the deal."

Compiled by EuroWeek Like in Hungary, activity in Poland was dominated by a central bank move. Unlike in Hungary, the move, on Wednesday, was to cut rates by 50bp to 9%.