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Institutional fund managers are launching convertible bond funds as part of their derivative operations, providing a new source of demand for equity-linked products. "We are seeing a growing number of clients viewing derivatives and convertibles as one product," said Michael Maras, global head of equity linked research at Merrill Lynch. "We have two major institutional clients on the derivatives side that have recently launched convertible funds."

* UBS Warburg launched a raid on Bank of America's US asset backed team, taking Shahid Quraishi to US asset backed origination in New York. Also joining from Bank of America are Paul Scialabba, Reggi DeVilliers, Peter Faigl and Daniel Huang.

Last Tuesday night, April 9, MTNWeek presented 10 awards to top issuers, dealers and issuing and paying agents in the market. The annual awards dinner was held in the ballroom at Le Meridien Grosvenor House Hotel in London. It was attended by nearly 500 guests and the awards speech was given by English football personality Jimmy Hill. The Euro-CP Association co-hosted the dinner, which was in aid of the childrens' charity Sparks. After the awards were presented, there was a raffle and an auction hosted by celebrity auctioneer John "Fingers" Fingleton. It raised in excess of £

A bank meeting was held in London this week for the general syndication of the Eu1.216bn 28 year debt package arranged for Infraspeed BV. Given the success of the deal in senior syndication, when 11 of the 12 banks invited committed, the retail phase is a relatively small affair. Between 10 and 15 banks have been invited in general syndication for tickets of either Eu30m or Eu20m.

Further bad news was heaped on the beleaguered National Air Traffic Services (Nats) Public Private Partnership (PPP) transaction this week as EasyJet, a member of the sponsoring Airline Group, announced it has written off its £7m investment in the company. Other members of the Airline Group are British Airways, BMI British Midland, Britannia, Monarch Group, Airtours and Virgin Atlantic. These companies are not understood to be planning to write down their investments.

EuroWeek understands that UBS and Barclays Capital are collecting a group of banks to underwrite the £9bn bridge loan for Network Rail. The deal will be used for the acquisition of Railtrack, to refinance Railtrack debt and fund its operations.

Kazakhstan Roadshow dates have been set for the $100m-$150m five year bond for Kazkommertsbank via ABN Amro and JP Morgan.

Finland Morgan Stanley sold a block of around Eu500m of Nokia stock yesterday (Thursday) for an undisclosed client. The bank confirmed the trade, but was unable to give further details.

Rating: Aa2/AA+ Amount: $300m

Arranger Westpac Banking Corp has completed the NZ$200m standby facility for Ports of Auckland. The facility is divided between a NZ$100m five year portion and a NZ$100m 364 day tranche.

An amendment to the Energy Bill that would have regulated the energy and metals derivatives markets has been laid to rest. Earlier today, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) withdrew her amendment following the defeat of a cloture petition, which she filed after Sen. Harry Reid (R-Nev.) offered an amendment to the measure on Monday. Reid's amendment was passed today and effectively stripped the metals oversight provision from the Feinstein amendment.

Rating agencies this week downgraded two high profile non-performing loan deals, Banca di Roma's Trevi Finance and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund's International Credit Recovery 5 (ICR-5). The downgrades, the first in the Italian NPL sector to arise from collateral performance, will focus attention on risks of the credit quality of NPL deals.