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Bankers said a KRW270 billion balance sheet collateralized loan obligation closed last week for South Korean-based Hanvit Bank. The CLO will reportedly transfer the Korean won equivalent of USD200 million of leveraged Korean loans off of the banks balance sheet into a special purpose vehicle. The bank reportedly issued KRW 270 billion in notes to the Korean market to raise funding for the sale. Note tranches and spreads could not be determined by press time. Calls to Hanvit Bank were not returned by press time.

Bear Stearns has hired Morad Maloujhi, former head of European fixed income derivatives sales at NatWest in London, in the new position of senior managing director and head of fixed income derivatives marketing for Europe. Gerome Camblain, senior managing director, head of sales for fixed income and derivatives for Europe at Bear Stearns in London, said Maloujhi will be responsible for leveraging generalist marketers and building a group to target European financial institutions. Since leaving NatWest in 1999 Maloujhi has been working at an Internet venture. Maloujhi, who will report to Camblain, joins the firm on July 2.

HypoVereinsbank last Friday closed an innovative S$200m commercial real estate securitisation for Singapore's CapitaLand, one of Asia's largest property developers. The deal is the country's first securitisation of commercial mortgages, and the first ABS to be rated by an international agency.

Kia Motors and LG Caltex are demonstrating the renewed demand by Korean corporates to access the international bond markets in their preparations launch global bond issues. The two deals also highlights the continued strength of Credit Suisse First Boston in gaining Korean corporate mandates, with the bank in leading roles for both transactions.

Merrill Lynch accessed the Samurai bond market for ¥105bn this week, taking advantage of continuing strong demand and lack of domestic supply. And from South Korea, Korea Development Bank (KDB) and Daejeon Metropolitan City also announced plans to launch Samurai deals, with both issuers mandating Nomura Securities as lead manager. Merrill Lynch's Samurai deal was heavily orientated towards short term asset managers, with ¥60bn of the deal being raised in a floating rate note (FRN) format, and pricing with a coupon of 14bp over three month yen Libor. Another ¥20bn was launched in three year paper with a 0.38% coupon and a spread of 16bp over yen Libor, which interested regional investors. The remaining ¥25bn was issued in five year notes and was priced at a spread of 20bp over yen Libor, providing a coupon of 0.65%, and went mainly to fire marine insurers, bank trusts and pension companies.

The Republic of Philippines' finance department has mandated seven banks to organise its non-deal roadshow in the coming months. The timing for the roadshow has not been finalised, although government officials had previously wanted to begin in July. JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley will arrange the US leg, with Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse First Boston to handle the European part, HSBC and ING Barings the Asian portion and Nomura Securities the leg in Japan.

Australian non-bank mortgage lender RAMS Home Loans Pty Ltd this week launched its 14th domestic securitisation, at a time when many of its competitors are taking deals to the international markets. "We are well known to investors in the Euromarket and make a considerable effort to keep them informed as well as expand our awareness among US investors," said Kieran Brush, group chief financial officer for RAMS in Sydney. "However, we can achieve competitive funding through smaller, regular domestic issues for the moment."

The 240m share IPO for Roadshow Group, the multi-media advertising arm of Kowloon Motor Bus, has been well supported, according to bankers involved in the offering. The issue is due to be priced tomorrow (Saturday) and will probably emerge at or very close to the top end of the HK$1.69-HK$2.25 price range, given little or no price sensitivity in the book. At HK$2.25 per share, the offer size would be HK$540m, equivalent to almost $70m.

Sony Communication Network (SCN) tracking stock, the first issue of its kind in Japan, fell 11% on the first day of trading, was down almost 20% at one stage on Wednesday and closed down almost 8% at the close of Tokyo trading yesterday (Thursday). Bankers close to the deal reported that institutional investors remain wary in the secondary market and that the buying is mainly retail. Sony and the joint lead managers for the issue, Merrill Lynch and Nomura Securities, priced Japan's first tracking stock at ¥3,300 last week, raising ¥10.1bn. Such instruments have proven popular elsewhere with companies because they allow them to raise funds targeted at high growth parts of their businesses.

The roadshows for subordinated bond issues by Citic Ka Wah Bank and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) began today (Friday). Citic Ka Wah Bank starts the roadshow for its 10 year non call five sub debt deal in Hong Kong, while OCBC kicks off in Singapore, with plans to move on to Hong Kong and Europe. Barclays Capital, ICBC and UBS Warburg are joint lead managing Citic Ka Wah's sub debt issue, which is almost certainly related to intended acquisitions. The deal is expected to be for a minimum of $200m, but could be much larger. Moody's assigned a Baa3 prospective rating to CKWB, the financial unit of Citic Ka Wah that will issue the sub debt.

The UK's Cable & Wireless (C&W) is eager to sell down the Singapore Telecommunications shares it will receive if SingTel's acquisition of Australia's Cable & Wireless Optus is completed next month. On Monday Merrill Lynch placed out 848.7m of the maximum 940m shares that C&W might end up owning to a single global fund management house. Some bankers in Hong Kong believe this is the first time an acquirer has pre-placed a block in this way.

The expansive Suncorp Metway secured A$550m in an issue of 45m new shares last Friday. Salomon Smith Barney was bookrunner with JB Were and Merrill Lynch joint lead managers. The money will partly fund Suncorp Metway's recent A$1.2bn purchase of GIO, the general insurance operation of Australia's AMP. The lead banks underwrote the issue at A$12.30 per share, offering a 12% discount to the market price of A$13.98 at the close of trading last Thursday. The final price emerged at A$13.30 per share, a modest discount of 4.9%. By yesterday (Thursday), the stock had climbed to A$15, a rise of 12.8% from the issue price and 7.3% from the closing price before the placement.