Search results for

* Banca Popolare di Lodi SCarl Rating: Baa1/BBB+

* ABN Amro Bouwfonds Nederlandse Gemeenten NV Rating: Aa2/AA

Euro swap rates fell by about 3bp on Thursday afternoon following another spate of unilateral intervention by the ECB to support the single currency. The euro has found support at $0.8575. Curve trades proved popular, said London dealers. The nine year versus 10 year trade was said to be popular, and went through at around 4bp. The two year spread was closing the week at around 30bp over cash, the five year was at 36bp-38bp over cash and the 10 year is 60bp-62bp over the July 2010 Bund. The 10 year versus 30 year curve is worth 16bp and the two year versus 10 year is worth 49bp.

* Bankers in the syndicate speculated that Deutsche Post will price below Eu20 a share from the range of Eu18-Eu23 despite a substantial oversubscription in the retail tranche of the Eu5.8bn-Eu7.4bn IPO. The conservative pricing is likely to come about because of the price sensitivity of institutions. "There are a number of institutions that have to buy this stock but given the way the market is behaving, it is proving hard to get others to sit up and take notice," said a banker.

Glas Cymru Cyfyngedig (Glas) breathed new life into the non-equity ownership model for UK water assets last week, after Western Power Distribution (WPD) announced it had agreed to sell Welsh Water to the not-for-profit entity for £1.8bn. Glas, which has been dubbed the "Welsh people's company", bid for Welsh Water earlier this year during the tussle between WPD and Nomura for the parent company, Hyder.

A week of skyrocketing spreads and interest rates in Argentina began to slow yesterday afternoon (Thursday) as the debt markets took hope from persistent rumours that the country is on the verge of announcing an emergency aid package with the IMF or the US Treasury that includes the replacement of its current economics minister, Jose Luis Machinea. Local reports yesterday suggested that Argentina may ask for as much as $16bn in emergency financing so that it can allay escalating fears that it will be unable to meet the $19.5bn of financing it needs in 2001.

A week of skyrocketing spreads and interest rates in Argentina began to slow yesterday afternoon (Thursday) as the debt markets took hope from persistent rumours that the country is on the verge of announcing an emergency aid package with the IMF or the US Treasury that includes the replacement of its current economics minister, Jose Luis Machinea. Local reports yesterday suggested that Argentina may ask for as much as $16bn in emergency financing so that it can allay escalating fears that it will be unable to meet the $19.5bn of financing it needs in 2001.

China Co-ordinator ABN Amro has been joined by a group of nine arranger banks including Banca Commerciale Italiana (Shanghai), Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Bank Brussels Lambert (Hong Kong), Bank of China (New York), Bank One, Commerzbank (Shanghai), KBC Bank (Shanghai), Rabobank Nederland (Hong Kong) and Sumitomo Bank to launch the $200m 364 day LC facility for Sinochem American CP Inc.

Europe * Deutsche Bank 24 (Haus 2000-2)

Among the flood of telecoms companies expected to tap the equity market, analysts view Portugal Telecom's Eu2.5bn offer as one of the cheapest. The book will open on November 14 and close on December 4. "While the stock should be valued at Eu15 it is trading at Eu10 so there is a lot of upside," said a fund manager based in Lisbon. Investors also perceive the company as a defensive stock and are interested in the company's focus on Portugal and Brazil.

Bank of America has hired 23 European equity analysts and six salespeople, most of them from DLJ. Bank of America previously had no European equity research presence to speak of. "We had zero," Stephen Kendall, the bank's head of European equities, told EuroWeek. "We looked at the whole of the DLJ equity research department and we targeted the ones we wanted."

Smoke signals are reported high above Canary Wharf, the land that time forgot. Our frontier scouts who dare to brave the badlands of the dead canary say that the smoke seems to be coming from 1, Cabot Square, the forbidding home of the mighty Credit Suisse First Boston. Are our friends at CSFB sending out an early Christmas message of peace and goodwill to all men? Our scouts are not convinced. They say that the scent from the smoke coming downwind reminds them of the Putney Vale Crematorium. Could it be, they ask, that some unfortunate DLJ staff, who did not make the CSFB interview cut, have been thrown onto the funeral pyre?