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With the announcement that Morocco has finally signed up Merrill Lynch and BNP Paribas for its debut unguaranteed Eurobond, and with Tunisia beginning a tendering process for its Eurobond, the Middle East and Africa look likely to take up the slack from central and eastern Europe in the second quarter. Bankers at the eight or nine shortlisted lead managers for the Republic of Morocco deal had been calling Rabat in vain for weeks, trying to find out the result of a beauty contest held in January.

First quarter results from Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns offered another reminder this week of the devastating earnings power of fixed income sales and trading desks. Both firms reported record fixed income revenues for the first quarter. But for Lehman Brothers, the gains in fixed income could not offset losses in other divisions, which cut net income to $298m from last year's figure of $387m. Net revenues were $1.6bn, a 15% drop from the $1.9bn recorded in Q1 2001.

Mediobanca International has increased the ceiling off its Euro-MTN facility to euro5 billion ($4.43 billion). The debt limit was previously euro2.5 billion. However, the amount outstanding off the shelf is nowhere near the previous debt ceiling. At $476.19 million, off 12 trades, the issuer now has a spare capacity of over euro4.5 billion.

Egypt The $250m three year bullet term loan for National Bank of Egypt is due to be launched into the market next week.

Citigroup/SSB has made another push to improve its Asia Pacific equity research, taking Ajay Kapur and his two person regional equity strategy team from Morgan Stanley. Kapur has been made a managing director, heading up Citigroup/SSB's Asia regional strategy research and co-ordinating the bank's Pacific Rim strategy research, which includes Australia and Japan.

* Deutsche Bank has hired Raymond Tam from Lehman Brothers as a director on its Asia equity sales desk in New York. Tam, who now reports to head of Asian equity sales Ray Kim, joined Lehman in 1999 after seven years with HSBC.

Italy Ferrari confirmed this week that it was keen to gain a stock market listing.

Investors flocked to Italian residential mortgage backed paper this week as three repeat issuers returned to market. Bipop-Carire, Banca Carige and Banca Popolare di Bergamo came back to the market in quick succession. Even as the last of the deals, Bipop Carire, closed, the market was bracing itself for two further issues today (Friday) from Banca Popolare dell'Etruria e del Lazio Scarl and Unipol Banca, via UBS Warburg and ABN Amro, respectively.

Banco di Sicilia, a member of the Banca di Roma group, last week (Friday) launched a Eu345m securitisation of non-performing loans (NPL) via Morgan Stanley and MedioCredito Centrale. Island Finance 2, the seventh in Morgan Stanley's International Credit Recovery NPL programme, was plagued just before launch by the placing of five tranches from an earlier deal in the series, ICR5, on review for possible downgrade due to the portfolio's poor performance. A Moody's official noted that current collections were at 26% of the projected recoveries.

The one-horse race to acquire Nomura's Voyager and Unique pub estates ended this week as a consortium of private equity investors comprising Enterprise Inns, Morgan Stanley's Princes Gate, Legal & General and Cinven bought the properties for £2bn. The result surprised few in the market after Punch Group, the only other competitor, withdrew its £1.9bn offer earlier in the week, reportedly balking at Nomura's £2bn asking price.

FCE Bank, the European arm of Ford Motor Credit, this week launched the second issue from Ford's international securitisation programme Globaldrive BV. The Eu800m transaction, lead managed by ABN Amro, Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank, parcelled 145,000 car loans to German individuals and companies, originated by Ford Bank, FCE Bank's German branch.

Three UK Home Office towers in Marsham Street, London, known affectionately as the "three ugly sisters", are to be demolished and a new office block built. Under the UK Private Finance Initiative (PFI), the project is being refinanced through an Ambac-wrapped £274.22m bond via Barclays Capital and RBC Capital Markets this week. Two tranches of notes were issued by Anne's Gate Property plc (AGP), majority owned by HSBC Infrastructure Ltd. A £174.22m index-linked tranche starts to amortise in March 2006 with an average life of 15.5 years and a legal maturity of March 2030. The notes were priced above par with a 3.237% coupon and spread of 65bp over index-linked Gilts. Some £30m of this tranche is being held by the issuer, but may be sold on for additional funding in the future.