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* Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Rating: Aa3/AA-

A NUMBER of potential IPO mandates involving Virgin Group companies are up for grabs in the UK, following the announcement by Richard Branson that he plans to float a number of Virgin businesses over the next two years. Although the mandates will not be awarded for some time, bankers tip Merrill Lynch as the frontrunner to land one or more of the proposed flotations.

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BANK Austria has closed general syndication of the $31m six month term loan extension for Vozrozhdeniye Bank. The loan was increased to $32m after a small -- but notable -- oversusbcription. The deal came amid perhaps the worst economic and political conditions lenders and borrowers have had to endure over the past five years.

WestLB has signed the Ecu472.75m and Bfr7.8bn purchase of receivables transaction for Forum Leopold. The loan is structured as a transaction to finance, over a 10 year period, the purchase price owed by the European parliament to Forum Leopold for the acquisition of a building in Brussels. The facility has been structured accordingly because the parliament is not allowed to borrow. It proved to be very successful-- it was closed early and was heavily oversubscribed.

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DESPITE challenging conditions in the fixed rate dollar market, two rare borrowers are preparing debut bonds. Zurich Insurance is holding presentations and meetings with investors with a view to inaugurating its recently signed $2bn Euro-MTN programme.

DAVID Bonsall has taken a team of 20 asset backed professionals to set up an international securitisation group at CIBC Wood Gundy. Until the recent merger with SBC Warburg, Bonsall was the global head of securitisation at UBS, in terms of volume and diversity of transactions a market leader in international asset securitisation. The 20 strong team are all former members of that team, and some key staffers will replay their UBS roles at CIBC Wood Gundy. Mark Lewis will lead the marketing and deal execution effort in Europe, while Fazel Ahmed fills that role in Asia.

THREE collateralised loan obligations, worth a total of $2.8bn, have been launched since last Friday. All came in floating rate dollars, but the similarities ended there. The largest, at $1.3bn, was Indosuez Capital Funding IV. CIBC Oppenheimer lead managed the deal for Indosuez Capital, a US subsidiary of Crédit Agricole Indosuez.

AT LEAST eight London-based securitisation officials have resigned from Deutsche Bank, most of them dissatisfied with new roles they were assigned after a reorganisation. Among the departing staff is Robin Saunders, who had headed the London asset backed group.

GREENWICH NatWest is to securitise a completely new asset class -- VAT receivables. A $100m CP facility has been arranged for Meridian VAT Reclaim, a Dublin based company which reclaims VAT from EU tax authorities for clients around the world. "Meridian is by far the largest VAT recovery organisation in the world," said Stuart Lammin, associate director in NatWest's London asset securitisation group. "Most of the claims arise from business travel. The amounts are very small, so there is a huge quantity of data to process -- Meridian's systems are extremely impressive."

* Merrill Lynch will next week launch Contimortgage Home Equity Loan Trust 1998-2, a $1.75bn deal with fixed and floating rate tranches. * Deutsche Bank is believed to be preparing a £115m residential mortgage securitisation for Kensington Mortgage Co -- the deal may launch as early as next week.