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Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA Amount: Eu100m (fungible with Eu75m issue launched 13/03/02)

Rating: A1/AA- Amount: Eu200m (increase to Eu550m issue launched 17/04/02)

Rating: A1/A/A+ Amount: Eu50m (fungible with two issues totalling Eu100m first launched 13/02/02)

Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA Amount: $100m (fungible with $500m issue launched 02/01/02)

Rating: A+ (Fitch) Amount: Eu300m Inhaberschuldverschreibung

Why did Sergio Rial choose to do a runner from ABN Amro and join the rich, but sometimes socially suspect, Bear Stearns? Wasn't the hard-driving Rial supposed to be a potential successor to chairman, Rijkman Groenink? In the upper echelons of the ABN Amro management, which unkind observers have described as an intellectual desert, Sergio was one of the few who knew how many Dutch buns make a baker's dozen. Our information from Amsterdam says that Sergio's confidence had been blown after he became totally tongue-tied in a recent interview, when he was asked to explain why ABN Amro was making a humiliating withdrawal from the North American securities business. We have seen a full copy of the transcript and poor Sergio must have wished that he had taken a refresher course on public speaking. Instead of saying: "We are pulling out because we are totally gormless and should never have entered the business in the first place," Sergio stuttered along trying to defend the ABN Amro position and was inevitably made to sound like a chump by the slick interviewer.

French hotels group Accor launched a complex Eu630m convertible yesterday (Thursday), topping off a busy but unrewarding week for equity-linked investors. The bond was just 1-1/2 to two times covered, and was criticised by fund managers for being overly complicated and offering too much to the issuer and not enough to investors.

French hotels group Accor launched a complex Eu630m convertible yesterday (Thursday), topping off a busy but unrewarding week for equity-linked investors. The bond was just 1-1/2 to two times covered, and was criticised by fund managers for being overly complicated and offering too much to the issuer and not enough to investors.

Guarantor: Air Liquide Rating: AA-

Rating: A2/A- Amount: Eu1bn

Combined with an increasing number of leveraged recapitalisations in the market such as Christie Tyler and Homebase, IPO-leveraged refinancings are keeping the European leveraged loan market buoyant. Like HMV, LM Glasfiber and William Hill, engineering company Alfa Laval this week announced its plans to raise a new loan to partly refinance a leveraged buy-out and support its IPO. Alfa has mandated SEB Merchant Banking and Svenska Handelsbanken to arrange a Eu575m multi-currency credit facility to refinance its high yield debt and back its listing on the Stockholmsbörsen on May 15.

Alfa Laval, the Swedish specialist engineering firm, opened the books for its Skr9.4bn (Eu1bn) IPO yesterday (Thursday) amid hopes that it will be able to attract investors betting on a recovery. "This is a plain old cyclical play," said a banker close to the deal. He explained that the bookrunners for the offering, Credit Suisse First Boston and Enskilda Securities, were hoping to attract investors to the issue who are looking to gain exposure to the sector and region.