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KBC Aim, the hedge fund manager, has launched a new convertibles arbitrage fund following the resounding success of its initial fund. KBC Aim's first Convertible Opportunities Fund was launched in July 2001, and by January it had returned 9.5% and increased in size from $50m to $500m. This compares with an average return of 14.5% for convertible arbitrage funds for the whole of 2001.

Brazil ABN Amro has been mandated to arrange and underwrite a $380m export credit facility for Compania Votorantim de Celulose e Papel. The three year loan is secured on the borrower's pulp and paper exports.

Marrionnaud Parfumeries, the French perfumes retailer, continued the run of French issuers in the European convertible bond market when it completed a Eu150m offering this week. French issuers have dominated a slow start to the year for the equity-linked market - of the five issues this year three have come from France. But the response from investors to Marrionnaud's issue was subdued.

This eMAXX table lists the leading fixed income fund managers based in western Europe.

Certain members of the dealing community have been plotting the conception of the next trading team extraordinaire. Dresdner's Henry Nevstad and JPMorgan's Alex Haidas got together last week to introduce their respective offspring to each other. They are are on friendly terms already apparently, despite Ida, Henry's daughter, being more than 16 times the age of Alex's week-old son. Leak thinks it all sounds a bit potty, and Gavin Eddy, UBS Warburg's MTN whizz-kid, will be finding the prospect of losing his baby-face status most unnappy-tizing. Alisdair McDougall, Abbey National's capital markets boss, left work behind this week to go skiing and prove issuers know how to have fun too. But with Commerzbank's Gayle Turner returning from her skiing experience without her voice, Alisdair will be wondering what he has to do to compete. Leak suggests drinking lots of brandy. The market's most enthusiastic drinkers, the Islandsbanki crowd, have sent out their Thorrablot 2 invitations. The title 'Get into the spirit' was accompanied by a caricature of a dancing Viking (did Bill Symington pose for that?), and no doubt that is what Ingvar Ragnarsson plans us all to look like by the end of the evening. Keep February 20 free... and February 21 for that matter.

Abu Dhabi The general syndication of the $1.6bn Shuweihat independent water and power project (IWPP) project financing is progressing well.

Merrill Lynch this week launched 13 new exchange traded funds (ETFs) that will track the FTSE Global Sector indices on the Deutsche Börse. The funds are the latest addition to a rapidly growing sector. Manooj Mistry, the ETF product manager at Merrill Lynch, explained that the funds were still a relatively new concept in Europe but that much was expected from the product. "Merrill Lynch first came to the European market two years ago with Stoxx 50 and EuroStoxx 50 trackers," said Mistry. "These two are now traded on six exchanges and there are almost 80 or 90 ETFs available in Europe amounting to nearly Eu6bn under management."

* Corporate bond trading site Coredeal MTS has beefed up its management board with the appointment of economist Lord David Currie as chairman and Angelo Proni as chief executive. "Coredeal MTS represents a very exciting business proposition creating a liquid trading vehicle for corporate debt in Europe, building on the success of MTS in the government bond market in the eurozone," said Currie, dean of the City University Business School.

Israel A State of Israel treasury team has been meeting investors in Europe this week, in an attempt to gauge demand for a Eu500m bond that will be led by Merrill Lynch and UBS Warburg.

The Financial services sector continued to dominate activity in other currencies today. Fifteen trades were closed in other currencies and 13 of these were done through the financials. The largest trade of the day came from Council of Europe Development Bank. It closed the day's only Canadian dollar note: a C$100 million ($62.86 million) 10-year MTN that pays a coupon of 5.25 % and was issued at a price of 98.073%. TD Securities led the note. Volkswagen International Finance closed the next largest trade: a Nkr400 million ($44.04 million) trade that matures on March 12 2004. The deal pays a coupon of 7.25% and was issued at a price of 101.988%. Fortis Bank was the lead manager. Nine trades were closed in Hong Kong dollar. Rabobank (Nederland) closed the longest note: an HK$112 million ($14.36 million) two-year trade that was led by JPMorgan. The note pays an annual coupon of 3.97% and cannot be called before maturity. Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais also saw opportunities at the long-end and issued an HK$72 million eight-year trade that offers a coupon of 6.21%. NBNZ International issued an HK$230 million three note but the rest of the day's Hong Kong dollar trade have maturities of less than two months.

France Pernod Ricard is considering whether to launch a convertible bond to refinance its acquisition of part of the drinks business of Seagram in December 2000. A spokesperson for the company confirmed that part of a Eu5.1bn loan taken out to finance the acquisition expires in March, but that a refinancing method had not yet been decided (apart from a Eu2.5bn loan that is being syndicated - see Syndicated Loans). "We have confirmed that we will do it [a convertible bond issue] but we have no comment further than that," the spokesperson said.