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A $15 million piece Loews Cineplex's bank debt traded in the mid-70s early last week. Traders agreed that the company's announcement that it would be closing more than 100 of its locations shouldn't affect levels. "It's no surprise. Everyone realized the theater industry had reached over capacity," a market watcher said. One dealer alluded to a bank meeting held last Tuesday afternoon, but didn't elaborate on the nature of it. The company has issued statements saying that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is a possible outcome. Calls to the New York City-based company were not returned by press time.

The rumored bond deal that sent trade levels for Allied Waste into the high 97 range two weeks ago came through last week, as the company announced a $600 million bond deal that will ratably pay down portions of tranches "A," "B" and "C." Dealers said last week that the company may increase the amount to $1 billion. There were a number of trades, each for $5 million, on the Street last Monday at 983Ž 8. Calls to the company were not returned by press time.

A $25 million piece of AT&T pro rata paper traded late last week at 99 3/8 . According to dealers, the level is on target with recent trades. One market watcher said the paper had been quoted at 99 1/4 the day before the trade. "A couple huge orders had come through [last week], which is why the prices are up," a trader involved in the deal said. "I think it will stay at this level because people aren't as aggressive."

BANK ONE is reportedly considering a collateralized loan obligation to shift some of its loans off its balance sheet. Linda Bammann, loan portfolio manager at BANK ONE, declined to comment. The bank is reportedly weighing whether to shed investment grade or below investment grade loans. One source said the bank was in discussions with Goldman Sachs, but nothing had been mandated yet. A Goldman banker said nothing for BANK ONE is in the firm's pipeline.

Bank of Montreal is close to wrapping up syndication of its $500 million deal backing Pogo Producing's acquisition of NORIC Corp.'s North Central Oil. Pricing on the five-year revolver is expected to be LIBOR plus 2%. Bank of America, Toronto Dominion Bank, and FleetBoston Financial are in as managing agents. The banker said general syndication began in early January and the syndicate comprises roughly 40 banks. "In this market you need about 40 banks to get an oil deal done," he said. Officials at Pogo Producing did not return calls.

The year's first regional subordinated debt deal was concluded this week when Bank of East Asia's (BEA) financial subsidiary, East Asia Financial Holding, launched a $550m 10 year non-call five bond issue. The 144a Reg S registered, lower tier two transaction was priced on Monday in New York, with the investor response meriting an increase in the deal's size from $500m.

Australia UtiliCorp Asia Pacific has launched a A$75m five year bond issue, said sole lead manager Westpac Institutional Bank this week. The BBB rated Australian company, which is a subsidiary of US-based UtiliCorp, placed the floating rate note issue at 95bp over BBSW, with a step-up coupon of 50bp if the company's rating falls to BBB-.

Australia St George Bank has completed the bookbuild portion of its A$300m sale of convertible perpetual preference shares through sole lead manager Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB). The product, Prymes (preferred resetting yield marketable equity security), counts as tier one capital with the Australia Prudential Regulatory Authority, the local bank regulator. Under the Prymes structure, the dividend can be reset at any time after five years.

Chad Syndication is expected to get underway next month on a $500m loan facility for the $3.5bn Chad Cameroon Pipeline Project.

Hong Kong Co-ordinating arrangers Barclays, BOCI Capital, JP Morgan, HSBC and Mizuho have completed the underwriting for the $4.7bn three tranche refinancing for Cable & Wireless HKT Telephone. The co-ordinators held $545m apiece.

Hong Kong * East Asia Financial Holding

Westdeutsche Landesbank has signed a $10 billion asset-backed CP programme under the name of Paradigm Funding, a conduit guaranteed by the bank. Paradigm Funding's programme is a multi-seller facility. The European asset-backed CP market surged in 2000 with outstandings totalling $90 billion in 2000, a 55% increase on the previous year. There are 48 asset-backed CPs in the European market, according to CPWare, and the bulk of these were signed in the past two years. The total volume of outstanding trades in the market is $217.28 billion. Perry Inglis, director at Standard & Poor's, says: "The market's remarkable increase came largely on the back of arbitrage issuance, which was a big market trend in 2000." Nine asset-backed CP programmes joined the market last year. Siefunds, the conduit guaranteed by Siemens, was the last programme to join the market. It has yet to issue, but Pennine Funding, the conduit arranged by Halifax has $160 million-worth of debt outstanding.