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Rio Tinto yesterday closed a five-year $30 million FRN. The trade pays a final coupon of Libor+29 and was managed by HSBC. It was issued under Rio Tinto's $2 billion debt issuance programme and is the borrower's first trade of 2001, according to MTNWare.

The market's been slow to recover from the MTNWeek awards party. A lot of hangovers were reported and several people have been ringing up concerned their names would be appearing in print. But Leak can confirm that the highlight of the evening was Dresdner's Henry Nevstad doing the splits on the dance floor. And on Thursday, in London, trading was sparse due to the tube strike. The madness of commuters trying to catch buses that were already packed full was equalled only by the panic on the trading floors. But cool Mike Bransford at Merrill took the hard option and jogged the five miles home. He's in training for the London marathon. It seems that everyone you meet these days has raw red skin that is peeling round the edges. You can expect to see more burnt noses next week as Morgan Stanley's syndicate and trading desks will the be off to Chamonix, the swanky resort in the French Alps. Isn't that where Rupert Lewis went to get away from the MTN market?

ABN Amro, BNP Paribas and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney have won the mandate for a $600m five year offering for Lebanon. According to a banker at one of the leads, the bond should be launched by Easter, ahead of the redemption of a $500m Lebanon issue on April 23.

Bear Stearns has added to its analytical and risk advisory capabilities with the appointment of Leo Tilman to its financial analytics and structured transactions group. Based in New York, Tilman will work on quantitative strategy and advise on risk under group head Daniel Spina.

Specialist medical care company Medidep completed its Eu31m follow-on offering late on Monday. Completion of the issue, led by Deutsche Bank, had to be delayed a week from March 19 because under French regulator Cob's rules, a follow-on issue cannot be priced underneath the lowest 10 day average over the last 20 days before pricing. This would have meant selling stock at a premium to market price. Shares were sold at Eu101.9, a discount of less than 1% to Monday's close of Eu102.8. They finished trading on Tuesday at Eu103.

UBS Warburg has named Russell Aboud as its new head of European equities in London. The position was vacated by Alan Hodson, who stepped up to become global head of equities at the end of March (EuroWeek 695).

Michael Page had to price the UK's biggest IPO of 2001 under the bookbuilding range on Wednesday, but managed to complete it despite difficult equity markets and pressure from private equity bids. Issues across Europe are struggling to come to market and parent group Spherion Corporation was considering offers from private investors for the recruitment company, leaving bookrunner Credit Suisse First Boston in an awkward position. The £656m issue was sold, however, and is trading up slightly from issue price.

The Borsa Italiana will begin trading on Monday on a new market segment, Star, and companies are already lining up to list. The segment will be devoted to mid-cap companies and will have strict corporate governance requirements. It will consist of 20 companies already listed in Milan, but in the last seven days two companies have announced plans to debut with an IPO on Star.

Singapore Power has raised the ceiling off its debt issuance programme to S$4 billion ($2.24 billion) from S$1.5 billion. The programme was signed in April 2000 and so far has $822 million outstanding off six trades. The programme was arranged by JP Morgan Securities Asia, Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation and UOB Asia.

SG has reworked its debt capital markets group to create multi-product origination teams and to coordinate origination and distribution.

* Credit Suisse First Boston is expected to launch a £200m securitisation today (Friday) for UK non-conforming mortgage lender igroup limited. The deal will offer £176m of senior notes rated triple-A by Fitch and Standard & Poor's, which are expected to price at 40bp-42bp over one month Libor with a 2.11 year average life.