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A new player made its entry in the busy UK non-conforming mortgage securitisation market this week as Mortgages plc launched a deal that has been expected for over a year. The £178m transaction, lead managed by Barclays Capital, achieved tight pricing by the standards of recent months - even compared to the levels paid by more seasoned issuers. The £154m triple-A tranche came at 40bp over three month Libor.

NIB Capital Bank (formerly De Nationale Investeringsbank) is set to launch its sixth and largest securitisation of Dutch residential mortgages next week. Joint bookrunners BNP Paribas, Merrill Lynch and NIB Capital Markets expect to bring the European roadshow to a close in London on Tuesday and price the Eu800m deal on Thursday. An official at one of the lead managers said the junior pieces had already been placed, as well as around half the senior notes.

Nomura International's principal finance group opened yet another acquisition campaign this week, by making an initial approach to Associated British Ports Holdings Plc, which operates 23 UK ports. Nomura would not comment and ABP would only confirm that an informal approach had been received from a third party, "at a level which would significantly undervalue the company and its prospects".

Rabobank hopes to launch its Eu212.5m leveraged, synthetic collateralised loan obligation Sundial Finance Ltd in the next few weeks. The bank has held roadshows for the deal in Asia, Europe and the US, and more presentations are planned.

Australian non-bank mortgage lender Interstar Securities (Australia) Pty Ltd this week launched the third issue from its Interstar Millennium Trust mortgage securitisation programme with an A$700m transaction, the country's second largest ever domestic MBS deal. The Australian market is booming. A record A$6.6bn of MBS was issued in the first quarter of 2000, according Standard & Poor's - a 23% increase on issuance on the final quarter of 1999.

JP Morgan last Friday launched the fourth transaction using its innovative Sequils-Mincs structure for cashflow collateralised debt obligations. Like the first Sequils-Mincs deal in April 1999, the $565m transaction will be managed by TCW Advisors, and parcels US leveraged loans. Under the structure, one SPV, called Sequils, issues notes and buys loans worth an equal amount. Morgan Guaranty Trust provides a credit wrap for the portfolio of about 16% through a credit swap, and transfers the risk to Mincs through a second credit swap.

Colin Mercer this week joined the London office of US law firm Brown & Wood as a partner, six months after resigning his partnership at UK practice Simmons & Simmons. Mercer decided to make the move in November, one week after his colleague John Russell - but while Russell was able to start work at Brown & Wood almost immediately, Simmons & Simmons obliged Mercer to spend six months on gardening leave. Both Russell and Mercer have some experience in securitisation and have done a lot of repackaging work.

Three weeks after BNP Paribas' European securitisation group resigned to move to Credit Suisse First Boston, the tussle between the two banks has ended and the new composition of the two groups has become clear. BNP Paribas mounted a rapid counterattack after nearly all its European securitisation staff resigned, putting each defector under pressure to stay. After a sustained struggle, the bank succeeded in retaining key members of the team that had structured Paribas' Italian deals, one of the most significant parts of its business.

This is the second week of DW's Learning Curve coverage of two consultative papers issued by The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Eastern Europe has failed to deliver great volume for the loan market in the first months of the year. But now there are signs that a number of relatively large facilities for well-known names are set to appear in the next month or two. These deals are likely to set new benchmarks in terms of pricing, as borrowers capitalise on the high levels of potential liquidity for eastern European names. Philip Carter reports.

Central and eastern Europe's debt markets are well and truly on the comeback trail. The region's economies are gradually powering up and the rating agencies are recognising the change by upgrading both sovereigns and corporates. Investor appetite is returning and it is not just limited to issues for the EU accession states. Witness Kazakhstan's $350m seven year issue. Nick Parsons reports on a region fighting back.

Central and eastern Europe is forcing its way into the western consciousness. Poland, Hungary, Estonia and Slovenia are all expected to enter the EU by 2005, while the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia look set to follow two years later. A boom in the currency and equity markets pending entry to the EU is widely predicted. Michael Hoare reports.