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Morgan Grenfell Private Equity (MGPE) has taken out a £1.59bn loan to back its purchase of the pub estate of UK leisure firm Whitbread, in the largest leveraged loan supporting a sponsor driven buy-out in the Euromarkets.

Morgan Grenfell Private Equity (MGPE) has taken out a £1.59bn loan to back its purchase of the pub estate of UK leisure firm Whitbread, in the largest leveraged loan supporting a sponsor driven buy-out in the Euromarkets.

Brazil Banco Santander Brazil SA is in the market with a $150m USCP back-up facility through mandated arranger Barclays Bank (Miami).

This year's Star of the Leak table award went to UBS Warburg's Gavin Eddy. It could not really have gone to anyone else - he's more in it than out of it. But that could change. Talking to Leak probably won't seem that interesting now he's been interviewed by the BBC. The Beeb was there at UBS Warburg's art night held in a disused underground railway station last Tuesday evening. There was plenty of champagne going around, so trying to figure out what the artworks actually were was made even more fun. After last Wednesday's awards dinner a few hardcore issuers and dealers felt they needed more entertainment, so the party carried on at Monte's, a bar in Kensington. But there was one award that we didn't give out at the awards party on Wednesday night. First prize for the hottest dance moves at Monte's goes to Dredner's Henry Nevstad and Ulrika Bohlin from SEK. They and many others were doing the funky chicken into the small hours. SEK declared at the conference that it wants to be the fastest borrower in the market. She certainly had to move pretty fast to keep out of Henry's clutches. Barclay's Nabil A-booze-a-lot was there too and living up to his nickname, but he was not the only one. Islandsbanki-FBA's Ingvar Ragnarsson, HSBC's Anne-Marie Ganatra, Barclay's Monja Blattner, Peter van der Hulst from Westland Utrecht and many more can all be very thankful that Leak knocked back quite a few G'n'Ts, so can't recall much about the merry goings-on, which didn't wind down until about 3.30am. One fine-looking fellow caught Leak's eye at the conference. He was wearing a red bow tie with white spots. If anyone knows who this mystery man was, please let him know he's won the best-dressed man 2001 award. Reports are coming thick and fast on SNS Bank's rally driving day last Thursday outside Amsterdam. Prizes were given out to those first back to base - the first prize went to Peter Panzer and West LB's Joachim von Hanishe, while Merrill's Dean 'the dog' Fogg came in second. The booby prize went to dealer Mattew Dickson, who came in last. After hurtling round country lanes all afternoon, the 40 or so dealers that went were treated to a trip on a barge on Amsterdam's canals. A lovely time was had by all, except for CSFB's Simon Hill and Nabil Aboulzelof, who somehow got waylaid in a lift and returned to find they had missed the boat. Who knows what two dealers left to their own devices in Amsterdam for the evening would get up to. And another question: what exactly did Merrill's cheeky trader Dean Fogg get up to that he was so keen for Leak not to find out about? Answers on a postcard please. The evening ended with dancing - Goldman Sachs' Shadi Farzad is quite a mover too, apparently. Several old faces have come out of the woodwork this week. Tony Wilson, ex MTN and CP desk head at Daiwa, showed up at the conference - he has now left DealComposer, the company he worked for with Kevin Arnold, and is working at Credit Lyonnais on the relationship side. And Bruce Cairnduff and Keith Phair both turned up at the awards party, as did web journalist Mike Tims.

Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) firmly established itself as a government bond surrogate this week when its Eu5bn 10 year global bond achieved deep penetration into the portfolios of government bond buyers worldwide, despite pricing through its outstanding paper.

Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) firmly established itself as a government bond surrogate this week when its Eu5bn 10 year global bond achieved deep penetration into the portfolios of government bond buyers worldwide, despite pricing through its outstanding paper.

Credit Suisse First Boston has hired Tony Kearney as a director in global account sales. He joins the London office in April from JP Morgan, where he was a hedge fund currency marketer. Kearney will report to the co-heads of global treasury product sales, David Newman and Rusty Elvidge.

Cazenove and Mediobanca suffered at the hands of shattered investor confidence as they were forced to price the Eu52m IPO of Datalogic below the bookbuilding range yesterday (Thursday). The deal priced at Eu20, more than 10% below the bottom of the subscription spread of Eu22.5-Eu28. "Very few people are willing to take a risk in these markets," said a banker close to the deal. The sentiment is becoming a common refrain across Europe. The Nuovo Mercato, where shares in Datalogic will start trading on Wednesday, plummeted more than 10% during bookbuilding. It now sits nearly 30% below its high for 2001.

Mexico completed its par-for-par $3.3bn global bond exchange offer on Friday within the prearranged terms, despite the volatility in emerging markets resulting from Argentina’s continuing political and economic troubles.

MGPE's £1.59bn facility is unlikely to remain the largest buy-out financing for long. Although the facility beats the long awaited Eu1.8bn (£1.13bn) buy-out for Messer Greisheim and the DM1.1bn loan backing Apax Partners' acquisition of Bundersdrükerie, the market is closely watching the bidding for Henkel's Cognis, valued at Eu3bn-Eu3.5bn. According to CapitalData Loanware, the number of LBO and MBO facilities over the first quarter of 2001 has been high with over 118 deals, totalling $12.3bn, launched into the Euromarket and many more in bidding or pre-launch. This is compared with 93 deals launched in January to March 2000, totalling $7.5bn.

Michael Page had to price the UK’s biggest IPO of 2001 under the bookbuilding range today (Wednesday), but managed to complete the offering despite difficult equity markets and pressure from private equity bids.

The book for the £825m IPO of executive recruitment firm Michael Page is almost covered, with three days of bookbuilding to go. Some investors are holding out to see how the markets develop, and some still need convincing that the company is not overexposed to vulnerable economies, but good accounts keep placing orders. The company has two teams, one in the US and one in Europe, and is waiting to see how much demand the US team can attract. "It is going to come down to the last one or two days," said a banker close to the deal.