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BNP Paribas will close syndication of the $1bn 364 day revolving credit facility for Clearstream Banking on Monday. Despite reaching an oversubscription, the deal will not be increased.

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

Banks were this week signed into the $1.75bn 364 day multi-currency revolver for Morgan Stanley. Joining the deal are BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, Crédit Lyonnais, Danske Bank, HSBC, HypoVereinsbank, Deutsche Bank, KBC, Intesa, Lloyds, ABN Amro, Bank of New York, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of America, Citigroup/SSSB, DnB Markets, ING Bank, Nordea, Royal Bank of Canada, Sanpaolo IMI, WestLB and Westpac.

* Barclays Capital has hired John Kreitler, a 16 year Lehman Brothers veteran, to head its global credit trading business. Kreitler headed European credit trading at Lehman Brothers, which has promoted Mark Ames to fill the post. Ames was previously head of credit derivatives trading in Europe.

EuroWeek understands that sponsors bidding in the final rounds for National Car Parks, which is being auctioned off by US group Cendant, are Apax, BC Partners and Cinven. Among the banks backing the sponsors are Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Eu500m acquisition facility for consumer goods company Koninklijke Vendex will be closed on Wednesday. BNP Paribas, Rabobank and ING are arranging the loan, which will be used to fund the company's takeover of Belgian DIY group, Brico.

Austria Erste Bank is planning to raise up to Eu750m by the end of the year to finance the acquisition of shares in Ceska Sporitelna, the Czech bank. AVS, which is the major shareholder in Erste Bank, has launched a tender offer for the shares. If all the shares are tendered to AVS, the deal size would reach Eu750m.

Bids for the £9bn bridge facility for Network Rail are due in today (Friday). UBS Warburg is advising the company with Barclays thought to be helping co-ordinate the debt facility.

Czech Republic Morgan Stanley will next week run the books on a $300-$500m bond for Czech Export Bank, the borrower's first international debt transaction since 1997. The issue for the government guaranteed credit will have an intermediate maturity. Price talk is 20bp-50bp over swaps - midway between the risk premium for Hungary and Poland.

Standard & Poor's (S&P), the US ratings agency, is looking to fill a void in the hedge fund market through the creation of a hedge fund index that will provide investors with a benchmark for the asset class. The S&P Hedge Fund Index intends to give investors a benchmark that is representative of most of the strategies employed by hedge funds. The index, which is expected to be launched in the third quarter, will give equal weighting to all investment strategies, avoiding overrepresentation of strategies that are currently popular.

BayernLB and DnB Markets are arranging a Eu500m five year term loan for power company Hafslund. Arrangers have launched the deal into senior syndication.

Pfandbrief Bank International (PBI) launched a Eu1bn letters de gages publiques transaction this week, reopening the market after 18 months of inaction in the Luxembourg covered bond market just as the German market was reeling from the downgrade to A1 of Allgemeine HypothekenBank Rheinboden's (AHBR) Hypothekenpfandbriefe by Moody's. PBI's issue, led by Deutsche Bank and HypoVereinsbank, was priced at 4bp over mid-swaps, equivalent to 29bp over the 4.125% August 2004 Bobl 132, which was considered "spot on" by all involved.