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Bucking the trend of a global M&A slowdown, Finnish energy group Fortum has announced its plans to acquire a 50% stake in Swedish Birka Energi. Fortum is buying out the City of Stockholm's 50% stake in Birka for a cash offer of Skr14.5bn.

For some in the careers industry, the current climate is proving fruitful. "Business has almost doubled this year," says Caroline Swain, managing director of Lee Hecht Harrison Ltd (LHH). She suspects that it may have increased even more for others, such as Meridian Consulting, one of the market leaders in the City of London. At Right Management Consultants (RMC), Anthony Payne, director, reports: "Events have accelerated and we are exceptionally busy. September 11 compounded the recessionary effects being imported from the US." All three companies deal in outplacement, the business of managing career change and transition, generally following redundancy. "We are the other side of the coin to headhunters," says Swain.

Your long term business partner, your consultant, your career adviser, your friend who puts you in a taxi at midnight. Whatever you call them, headhunters are keen to stress that they provide a multi-faceted service to the financial industry. And right now the pressure is on for recruitment firms to prove their worth. Their practices and services are coming under far closer scrutiny as the slowdown bites and they find themselves just as vulnerable as their client base. Quentin Carruthers visits the recruiters to report on their unique view of the banking world.

Strategic hiring In Bob Diamond Barclays Capital has a leader capable of attracting top talent. Furthermore, Barclays is not lumbered with poorly performing corporate finance and equity divisions and can afford to make strategic hires. Diamond's attempted raid on the New York investment grade bond team at Credit Suisse First Boston grabbed headlines earlier this year, reportedly forcing CSFB's then CEO Allen Wheat to agree to generous guaranteed contracts to persuade his bankers to stay. Diamond went on to make a successful bid for Deutsche Bank's Grant Kvalheim, John Winter and Peter Goettler.

The Republic of Hungary will not tap the international markets next year, or at least not via its debt management agency, the Államadóság Kezelö Központ (AKK). "We have decided with the AKK to do all new borrowing in the domestic market," said an official at the finance ministry. "The AKK is trying to improve domestic liquidity and lengthen the yield curve - it issued the first 15 year bond last week - and should continue"

Industrivarden, the Swedish holding company, signed a euro500 million ($441.45 million) Euro-CP programme last Thursday, November 8. Barclays Capital arranged the facility, which is the issuer's first instrument set up to tap the debt capital markets. The new programme will begin trading in January next year, although no specific plans about currency, size or maturity have yet been made. Lars von Celsing, finance manager at Industrivarden, says: "We will have to follow the market. This programme has been planned for some time, but the market is a little unstable at the moment. I think it should settle at the beginning of next year though." Industrivarden is rated A-1 by Standard & Poor's. It is the first Swedish Euro-CP signing this year and only the fourth since the beginning of last year. The lack of competition from the region, especially the financial sector - the last Swedish financial to sign a Euro-CP was Spintab in July 1999 - means no investor roadshow is planned. It is the fourth arrangership Barclays Capital has won this year. Von Celsing expects outstandings off the shelf to reach about 50% of the euro500 million limit, adding: "We also have a domestic programme that is active, so this is more like an additional funding source rather than a major strategic move into external markets." The dealers off the programme are the arranger, Citibank and Deutsche Bank.

Ile de France has put its name to a euro500 million ($893.42 million) French CP programme. BNP Paribas and HSBC CCF are the joint arrangers. Jerome Pellet, public sector origination at HSBC CCF, says: "This is a really important move as it is the first French region to sign a CP programme. We are sure that the programme will do well and that we will see more French regions coming to the market." The signature comes six months after Ile de France signed its long-awaited euro1 billion Euro-MTN programme. The issuer has still to make its first issue off the facility but Andre Autrand, chief financial officer at Ile de France, says: "We are preparing an MTN issue of euro100 million and people will see this on their screens in the next few weeks." Ile de France used the Bloomberg network to market its MTN programme and Autrand is considering it for the new facility. Autrand says: "We will use all means to speak with investors and this includes electronic devices such as the Bloomberg, roadshow, which we used for our MTN programme." Moody's and Standard & Poor's rate the programme P-1 and A-1+ respectively. The appointed dealers on the programme are the arrangers, CDC IXIS Capital Markets, CIC, Credit Agricole Indosuez, Natexis-Banques Populaires and SG.

Interbanca and UniCredito Banca Mobiliare (UBM SpA) have won the mandate to arrange a Eu955m loan for Italian broadband internet services provider FastWeb SpA. The headline margin on the credit is 437.5bp, a spread over 80bp wider than any previous deal in the Italian loan market, according to Dealogic Loanware. The corporate loan supports the build-out of the borrower's fibre-optic cable network, and is similar in structure to a project finance transaction.

Corporate debt markets continued to rally this week after the recent round of rate cuts, with credit spreads tightening across the board. The receptive environment allowed for several successful transactions, none more so than the Eu5bn five year global bond for the EIB launched off its EARNs programme. Careful premarketing and bookbuilding resulted in a book of Eu10bn for the supranational and the deal was hailed as an unequivocal success. The revival in appetite for corporate debt was underlined by the strong demand for AT&T's jumbo multi-tranche offering denominated in dollars and euros. The US telco raised $10.01bn across four tranches and reportedly drew an order book of $30bn.

Portugal Telecom took advantage of a thriving convertibles market yesterday (Thursday) to launch an opportunistic Eu550m deal. The issue was twice covered, but drew complaints from investors and rival bankers for beingoverly aggressive. The deal was a reminder, after the blowout success of Swiss Re the day before, of the competition between banks to win mandates in the sector. The mandate for the deal was won on Wednesday night after a tight bidding process.

Would you believe that ABN Amro in London has joined the glitterati jet set and that if you venture to 250 Bishopsgate you may have to fight your way through lines of paparazzi and a throng of nubile groupies waving autograph books? What has happened to change ABN Amro's image? Normally the most exciting event on ABN Amro's social calendar is a demonstration of clog dancing by selected employees from Amsterdam HQ, followed by a Bols gin and Red Bull drinking competition. Perhaps chairman Rijkman Groenink has hired Claudia Schiffer as head of sales? Has Prince William signed up for the graduate training programme in 2004? No, the popping cameras and crowds of autograph hunters are all the result of the sensational news that an ABN Amro employee, a Mr Tim Attias, is escorting the vivacious and still frisky Jerry Hall, who was once married to Mick Jagger and is considerably richer thanks to that association. This is the best publicity that ABN Amro has had for ages and we hope that chairman Groenink has given the orders to milk the story with all the resources the bank can muster. How about a photo shoot on the steps of 250 Bishopsgate? Could Ms Hall be persuaded to be seen instructing her broker to buy 10,000 shares of ABN Amro - heaven only knows the stock needs all the help it can get.