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BondWeek is the leading news publication for fixed-income professionals, covering new deals, structures, asset-backed securities, industry and market activity.

Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and UniCredit Banca Mobiliare have begun bookbuilding for CF Finance Srl, a securitisation of loans to pharmacists for Credifarma, arranged with Euro Capital Structures. Price guidance for the triple-A Eu531m senior tranche is 45bp-47bp for a 4.8 year average life, with legal maturity in October 2012, while the Eu33m double-A bond is expected to come in the high 60bp area. The double-A bond averages 5.15 years.

The UK non-conforming ABS market saw its first test of the year as two regular issuers, Southern Pacific Mortgage Lenders and GMAC returned to the market, issuing around £1.35bn equivalent of bonds. As well as setting the tone for upcoming issues such as Kensington Mortgages RMS 14, which began marketing this week via Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley, the deals also tested investor appetite for Ambac risk - the monoline wrapping both issues.

The new 'dress up' orders at JP Morgan Chase have been greeted with mirth in the City of London. Because so many JPMC staffers have been hoofed unceremoniously into touch, one Goldman trader said: "Isn't this a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?"

Martin Finegold, the former Goldman Sachs trader who founded Kensington Mortgage Co, has set up a new venture in London called Cambridge Place Investment Management. The company will build and manage collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) backed by asset backed securities.

UK mortgage lender Mortgages PLC this week continued the traditional year-end rush of non-conforming RMBS with a £257m securitisation of owner-occupied and buy-to-let mortgages. The transaction was lead managed by Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers - the same banks that closed the company's last issue. The deal follows a busy quarter for the non-conforming mortgage sector, with Kensington Mortgage, Preferred Mortgages and Southern Pacific Mortgages all closing deals. Spreads in the asset class have widened since Preferred came to market in late September, and one established buy-to-let lender, Paragon Group, even chose this week to postpone an issue until next year due to market conditions.

Westpac and Commonwealth Bank of America this week launched the second securitisation for Australian non-conforming lender Bluestone Group. Non-conforming mortgages are a new feature in the Australian market, and Bluestone was founded as recently as 2000, with warehouse funding from Nomura and Barclays. Its first securitisation was a A$130m issue in April 2002.

A E5 billion asset-backed deal that temporarily allowed ABN AMRO to leapfrog over J.P. Morgan Securities and Morgan Stanley into the number three spot on the European securitization league tables has been disallowed. That the deal, Quicksilver, had been included in the league table in the first place has some London securitization bankers piqued. They claim none of the notes have appeared in the market and were not sold outside of ABN or its affiliates, one of the league table's criterion. A spokesman for Thomson Financial, the league table's compiler, declined to comment.

Russian investment bank United Financial Group has established an equity derivatives group within its structured products department and hired Vadim Hilliard to head it. Hilliard joins from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein London, where he worked for three years, most recently as a vice president, trading equity OTC derivatives trading.

UK non-conforming mortgage lender Kensington Mortgage Co this week launched its largest securitisation, a £600m equivalent issue in dollars, sterling and euros. Residential Mortgage Securities 13 plc, the group's 15th securitisation, included an oversubscribed senior dollar piece sold to US money market funds under rule 2a7 of the Investment Company Act. Two further dollar denominated tranches were sold by sole bookrunner Bear Stearns.

Amount: $542m, £242.04m, Eu15m Issue price: 100.00

Italy Credit Suisse First Boston has begun roadshows for Lombarda Lease Finance 2, a Eu610m securitisation of real estate, auto and equipment leases for SBS Leasing, a subsidiary of Banca Lombarda.