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Förvaltnings AB Framtiden, a municipal housing company owned by the City of Gothenburg, yesterday (Thursday) launched its third securitisation, becoming just one of two European issuers to launch an asset backed bond since last week. Originally billed as a Eu275m deal, it was reduced to Eu260m, owing to the weakness of the Swedish kronor. The deal is backed by five year loans to three of Framtiden's multifamily housing subsidiaries.

The European asset backed markets slowly inched towards normality as this week wore on, but it is still far from business as usual. It took until yesterday (Thursday) for a new issue to come to market with Förvaltnings AB Framtiden launched via SEB Merchant Banking and Svenska Handelsbanken and Crédit Agricole Indosuez bringing their Italian deal for five co-operative banks.

Royal Bank of Canada's trading and syndication team has moved to Greenwich, Conn. RBC was based in One Liberty Plaza, which is deemed still structurally sound but requires some repair. An RBC official said RBC has more than 500 employees in Manhattan. Those located at One Liberty Plaza were evacuated safely, he added. He could not provide a timeframe for returning to the downtown Manhattan location. A couple of trades have now been executed, he said.

In the wake of the terrorist attack, banks were taking extra measures to protect back-up systems and monitor activity coming in and out of the buildings. Midtown banks like Credit Lyonnaise had locked all doors except the main door. Other banks, such as FleetBoston Financial, were having employees sign in and out and packages were subject to inspection. The concern went well beyond New York City, as Boston area banks noted that the hijacked planes had taken off from Logan Airport. Dealers feared for Boston high-rises like John Hancock and Prudential buildings. "This isn't L.A. or New York, but [the attacks] hit home," said a Boston area dealer. Dealers said the extra security was to be expected and a small price to pay in light of the recent tragedy.

New York, September 21, 2001 - As expected, last week's tragedy did affect the syndicated loan market. Not unusual in times of financial and political stress, the secondary loan market became more volatile and uncertain. However, the market reacted with great composure and restraint on the first normal day of trading. Furthermore, the volatility lessened on Tuesday and Wednesday, as buyers and sellers became more comfortable with the market and its prospects. There are several ways in which the increased volatility and subsequent stabilization can be seen.

BANK ONE and Union Bank of California are set to launch Thursday, Sept. 20, deals for Coraopolis, Pa.-based DQE Capital and its unregulated subsidiary Duquesne Light. According to bankers familiar with the situation, the bank meeting will be done via a conference call and IntraLinks, a secure online environment for project and document management used for large leveraged capital markets transactions. The deals were originally set to launch last Thursday at the Millennium Hotel in downtown New York. IntraLinks is a secure meeting room on the Web, where project and relationship management teams schedule, conduct and manage business interactions online.

In the wake of the terrorist attack, banks were taking extra measures to protect back-up systems and monitor activity coming in and out of the buildings. Midtown banks like Credit Lyonnais had locked all doors except the main door. Other banks, such as FleetBoston Financial, were having employees sign in and out and packages were subject to inspection. The concern went well beyond New York City, as Boston area banks noted that the hijacked planes had taken off from Logan Airport. Dealers feared for Boston high-rises like John Hancock and Prudential buildings. "This isn't L.A. or New York, but [the attacks] hit home," said a Boston area dealer. Dealers said the extra security was to be expected and a small price to pay in light of the recent tragedy.

Bankers said Deutsche Bank's planned $500 million credit for Xerox is currently on hold following the company's latest $1 billion financing agreement with GE Capital. Deutsche Bank was expected to bring the credit to market this month in an effort to provide the company with added liquidity to the $2 billion in cash the company has on hand. Market sources said Deutsche Bank is sitting on its commitment as the company determines whether or not it will need the additional capital. "This has nothing to do with the events of last week," one banker clarified. Xerox Chief Financial Officer, Barry Romeril, did not return calls. Kevin McKee, spokesman for Xerox, declined to comment. Officials at Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

Market players pointed fingers in different directions in response to the location of Merrill Lynch's syndication group, which was displaced after last week's destruction. Various answers put the group in New Jersey, operating out of a fellow banker's apartment, or working from home individually. Early last week, some market sources insisted the group was working from the apartment of Jack Yang, the head of leveraged finance products for Merrill. A Merrill Lynch official said staffers who live near Yang were there for a few days while others worked from home. The group has plans to move to the firm's contingency site in Jersey City by the end of the week. "There are 200 people in New Jersey and that number will double and triple in time," he said. He added that the loan group is very much intact and open for business. He noted the trading group is also stationed in New Jersey while the capital markets and originations groups are located at various law offices through out the city with whom the firm has relationships.

Gopal Varadhan, managing director of the interest-rate derivatives group in New York, was still unaccounted for Thursday, according to company officials. Varadhan reported to Harry Fry, senior managing director in New York. Fry is reportedly safe and accounted for, according to the official. Fry and Varadhan worked on the 105th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Varadhan, previously president of an Internet company, joined the broker in early August to build Cantor's interest-rate derivatives team in expectation of the swaps curve replacing the Treasury yield curve as the fixed income market's benchmark (DW, 8/13).

The majority of trades going through the quiet market last week originated from customers and banks maintaining their books. "The market is flow driven right now and there won't be much opportunity to take speculative risk for several weeks," said Ronald Leven, currency strategist at Lehman Brothers in Tokyo. He added that corporates with receivables and payables were in the market buying puts or calls on the yen depending upon their underlying position and banks were active in foreign exchange options in the short end, primarily to square positions.

China's B share markets have been the best performing market indices in the world so far this year with the Shanghai and Shenzhen indices having gained more than 80% and 100% respectively. This effect was primarily a result of structural changes in the market.