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UK directories business Yell has appointed Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to lead an IPO, just nine months after British Telecom sold the group. The sale of Yell, which some analysts have valued at as much as £4bn, will lock in an impressive profit for venture capitalists Apax Partners and Hicks Muse, which paid £2.1bn for the business.

* CDC IXIS and SG will price a Eu738m club funding CDO for Iccrea Banca on Monday, backed by 117 bonds issued by Italian co-operative banks. Price talk is 23bp over Euribor for the single tranche, rated triple-A by Moody's and Standard & Poor's with a 5.7 year average life. Expected and legal maturities are December 2007 and 2009. Four junior notes, totalling Eu151.6m, will be retained by Iccrea Banca.

UK mortgage lender Northern Rock issued the first prime UK mortgage deal of the year when Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch launched Granite Mortgages 02-1 plc. This was the first Granite deal to include a euro tranche and the lead managers reported strong demand.

Deutsche Bank this week launched MBNA Series, a Eu750m securitisation of the US credit card issuer's US credit card portfolio. It is the first euro issue from its Credit Card Master Note Trust established last year. The single fixed rate tranche repays as a bullet with a legal maturity of July 2014. The triple-A rated notes were issued below par with a coupon of 5.6% and launch spread of 25bp over mid-swaps.

The auction for Gen Re Securities' credit derivatives portfolio is down to the last two firms: BNP Paribas and Société Générale, according to a senior banker. The firms are rumored to be bidding USD12-15 million for the portfolio, which consists of 400 single-name credit-default swaps and eight portfolio swaps. The auction is expected to end Friday.

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Trading for Saftey-Kleen picked up this week with $30 million trading up from the 32-33 range to 36 following a U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval of the bidding and auction process for its Chemical Services Division (CSD). Dealers said all the major desks are looking to make trades. Computer Associates has traded in the 95 range with $5-$10 million changing hands, although rumors suggest the name dipped even lower this week. One dealer suggested the reported $500 million convertible issue is considered an "act of desperation", although other traders defended the name. Calls to the companies were not returned by press time.

Howard Tong, director of global equity markets at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, resigned two weeks ago. Market officials said Tong, who focused on equity derivatives marketing for Hong Kong and Taiwan primarily covering warrants, is looking to take a break from the industry. Tong could not be reached for comment.

A 30-strong team of former Gen Re Securities managers, traders and structurers are shopping themselves around the major financial institutions in London, Bermuda and New York. The team, which is led by Kevin Lecocq, managing director and global head of marketing and structuring in London, has interviewed at Swiss Re, HypoVereinsbank and Goldman Sachs, according to officials familiar with the situation. Press officers at the three firms declined comment. Lecocq could not be reached.

ArvinMeritor, an auto parts manufacturer in Troy, Mich., is considering entering an interest-swap on the back of its USD400 million bond offering last month. "We feel now is an ideal time to examine the possibility of doing an interest rate swap. Nothing has been set in stone. But it's definitely something we're considering," said a company official. The company held off on going ahead with a swap immediately following the offering because there was still a high level of uncertainty over the course the Federal Reserve might take after lowering interest rates consistently throughout 2001. "We wanted to be certain the Fed would not look to raise rates over the next eight months, at least. The latest comments seem to support that," the official said.