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* Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Mediobanca opened the books yesterday (Thursday) for Quarzo, a Eu500m securitisation of consumer loans for Compass, the consumer finance arm of Mediobanca. The banks expect to price the deal next week. Two tranches of floating rate notes are being offered. Official price talk on the Eu479m triple-A tranche with an average life of 4.42 years and expected maturity of January 2008 at the call date is 32bp-34bp over three month Euribor.

It hasn't been the happiest of times for Swiss banks over the past six months. Poor Credit Suisse is being hammered by the local Zurich press and chairman, Lukas Mühlemann, is hanging on by his fingertips. The chances of Credit Suisse First Boston staying independent is now, according to the bookmakers, 18 months at the outside. Profits at Vontobel and Julius Baer, have dropped off and Switzerland's wealthiest investor, Martin Ebner, has run into a brick wall in Scandinavia. Is UBS therefore the country's last great hope of maintaining some credibility in the global banking amphitheatre? We always thought that UBS was a rather underrated shop - the impression is that it genuinely wants to be a Bergdorf Goodman or Saks Fifth Avenue, but when you open the door, you find yourself in a local 7-Eleven.

This week saw the first securitisation of rents from student accommodation for over two years, when Unite Group plc securitised rental flows from a portfolio of student and NHS key worker accommodation. Investors were initially wary of exposure to the low income world of UK students and only six of the 47 properties are occupied by the NHS. In February, Moody's downgraded two tranches of notes from the first securitisation of UK student loans, Greenwich NatWest's £1.03bn THESIS No 1 plc of March 1998.

* Banco Santander Central Hispano is preparing to launch Fondo de Titulización Hipotecaria Hipotebansa 10, its 10th securitisation of Spanish residential mortgages. Observers believe that Deutsche Bank or JP Morgan will be awarded the distribution mandate for the Eu900m transaction. The deal was tightly bid in a competitive auction and is expected to be launched next week. * Annington Homes Ltd is expected to launch the tap of Annington Finance No 4 (AF4) on Monday. AF4 was a securitisation of UK ministry of defence housing acquired by Nomura in 1996.

* Morgan Stanley is preparing to launch Clare Island, a Eu400m collateralised debt obligation backed by loans and bonds originated by Allied Irish Banks. The books have already closed on a Eu30m triple-B piece, a Eu25m double-B piece and the equity thanks to strong investor interest. Market participants suggest that a Eu212m piece rated triple-A and Eu104m of double-A rated paper are still to be sold. Price talk on the triple-A piece is 45bp-48bp over six month Euribor and around 75bp over on the double-A paper. Around 70% of the primarily European portfolio consists of senior secured loans, 20% mezzanine loans and 10% high yield bonds. The deal is expected to be priced in early February.

Kensington Mortgage Group, the UK lender of non-conforming mortgages, this week launched its largest securitisation to date: a £380m offering denominated in dollars and sterling. Lead managed by Barclays Capital (books), Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, NIB Capital and WestLB, the deal was unusual in that its senior piece, denominated in dollars, was sold to US money market funds under rule 2a7 of the Investment Company Act.

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* Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney, Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Brothers are believed to have won the joint mandate for Holmes V, the next mortgage backed securitisation from UK bank Abbey National from its master trust structure. The bank hopes to launch the deal this year subject to market conditions but timing and size are still to be determined.

* JP Morgan is now marketing the equity tranche of Jubilee, the Eu500m arbitrage CDO it is lead managing for Barclays Bank, securitising European high yield debt. The deal is expected to be closed by the end of the year. * Rabobank and Fortis Bank are expected to launch a Eu1.5bn securitisation in November backed by residential mortgages originated by ASR Bank, part of the insurance-based group AMEV Stad Rotterdam that was taken over by Fortis last year.

Igroup Limited, the UK non-conforming mortgage lender, launched a £200m securitisation this week that achieved tight spreads compared with recent issues in the sector. Lead managed by Credit Suisse First Boston, Originated Mortgage Loans 8 plc offered a £176m senior tranche rated triple-A by Fitch and Standard & Poor's. The note was priced at 40bp over one month Libor with an average life of 2.1 years and 2008 expected maturity.

Akbank, the second largest bank in Turkey, this week completed a $100m securitisation backed by its future revenues from processing credit card vouchers for VISA, MasterCard, American Express and other systems. Lead managed by Bank of America, the issue is the second Akbank has raised off these assets.

This year's Star of the Leak table award went to UBS Warburg's Gavin Eddy. It could not really have gone to anyone else - he's more in it than out of it. But that could change. Talking to Leak probably won't seem that interesting now he's been interviewed by the BBC. The Beeb was there at UBS Warburg's art night held in a disused underground railway station last Tuesday evening. There was plenty of champagne going around, so trying to figure out what the artworks actually were was made even more fun. After last Wednesday's awards dinner a few hardcore issuers and dealers felt they needed more entertainment, so the party carried on at Monte's, a bar in Kensington. But there was one award that we didn't give out at the awards party on Wednesday night. First prize for the hottest dance moves at Monte's goes to Dredner's Henry Nevstad and Ulrika Bohlin from SEK. They and many others were doing the funky chicken into the small hours. SEK declared at the conference that it wants to be the fastest borrower in the market. She certainly had to move pretty fast to keep out of Henry's clutches. Barclay's Nabil A-booze-a-lot was there too and living up to his nickname, but he was not the only one. Islandsbanki-FBA's Ingvar Ragnarsson, HSBC's Anne-Marie Ganatra, Barclay's Monja Blattner, Peter van der Hulst from Westland Utrecht and many more can all be very thankful that Leak knocked back quite a few G'n'Ts, so can't recall much about the merry goings-on, which didn't wind down until about 3.30am. One fine-looking fellow caught Leak's eye at the conference. He was wearing a red bow tie with white spots. If anyone knows who this mystery man was, please let him know he's won the best-dressed man 2001 award. Reports are coming thick and fast on SNS Bank's rally driving day last Thursday outside Amsterdam. Prizes were given out to those first back to base - the first prize went to Peter Panzer and West LB's Joachim von Hanishe, while Merrill's Dean 'the dog' Fogg came in second. The booby prize went to dealer Mattew Dickson, who came in last. After hurtling round country lanes all afternoon, the 40 or so dealers that went were treated to a trip on a barge on Amsterdam's canals. A lovely time was had by all, except for CSFB's Simon Hill and Nabil Aboulzelof, who somehow got waylaid in a lift and returned to find they had missed the boat. Who knows what two dealers left to their own devices in Amsterdam for the evening would get up to. And another question: what exactly did Merrill's cheeky trader Dean Fogg get up to that he was so keen for Leak not to find out about? Answers on a postcard please. The evening ended with dancing - Goldman Sachs' Shadi Farzad is quite a mover too, apparently. Several old faces have come out of the woodwork this week. Tony Wilson, ex MTN and CP desk head at Daiwa, showed up at the conference - he has now left DealComposer, the company he worked for with Kevin Arnold, and is working at Credit Lyonnais on the relationship side. And Bruce Cairnduff and Keith Phair both turned up at the awards party, as did web journalist Mike Tims.