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ABN Amro Rothschild, Credit Suisse First Boston and Lazard launched the £1.5bn IPO of Granada Media this week to strong interest from investors. Bankers said the deal was already covered, even though pricing is not due until July 11. "Demand for one-on-one meetings has been phenomenal," said a banker. Trading will begin on July 18.

SYNDICATION of the Eu6bn loan for Belgian brewing company Interbrew closes today (Friday) after a rocky ride through the upper level of syndication. Lead arranger ABN Amro is looking for between eight and 10 banks to share the underwriting, and has imposed an ambitious timetable so it can shift the bulk of the underwriting off its balance sheet by mid-year.

The Chinese government successfully completed its plans to tap the yen market this week, issuing its first Samurai for five years and demonstrating that the Japanese appetite for quality foreign borrowers remains strong. The bond, rated A3/BBB, was at the lower end of bankers' expectations, which had been for an issue of ¥40bn-¥50bn. The ¥30bn transaction was priced at par with a spread of 40bp over Libor. Launched by Merrill Lynch Japan and Nomura Securities, the issue has a 1.72% coupon.

Brazil Bank of America is in the market with a $175m two year USCP backup facility for Banco Santander Brasil SA.

Ireland's largest building society, EBS, launched its first securitisation this week with a Eu495m residential mortgage deal, Emerald Mortgages No 1 plc, lead managed by UBS Warburg. EBS Building Society is one of the top six mortgage lenders in Ireland, with a 14% market share. Jackie Gilroy, general manager of property finance at EBS in Dublin, said that owing to Ireland's rapidly growing housing market, the building society had been forced to seek new forms of funding.

Lehman Brothers has appointed Richard Parkhouse as managing director and head of global business strategy for the equities division. Based in London, he reports to Roger Nagioff and Rob Shafir, co-heads of global equities. "The Lehman equities business has expanded dramatically during the last two years under what is clearly a formidable management team," said Parkhouse. 'This business has executed a clear strategy and has been doing extremely well to meet the unprecedented opportunities created within global equities as market dynamics and economics have changed."

Brazil is expected to launch a multi-billion dollar Brady bond exchange offer, despite claims to the contrary by central bank officials yesterday (Thursday). The market has been eagerly awaiting the offering, and bankers speculated that a 40 year non-call 15 structure for as much as $3bn was being discussed by Brazil and underwriters Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. Hopes that the government could launch the deal as early as today (Friday) or within the next two weeks were raised when the government's official daily bulletin reported that Brazil had awarded a mandate for the deal. But the central bank later denied that the deal was imminent, and neither Goldman nor JP Morgan would comment.

South Africa The two parallel facilities for South African Reserve Bank, a $1bn cash facility and a $500m gold loan, have been wrapped up.

Emerging market syndicate officials accused Argentina of abusing the euro market and damaging its credibility this week, when the republic launched a four year Eu500m transaction while investors were still struggling to absorb a recent deluge of Latin American paper.

Andrew 'Asbo' Asbury has left Nomura after 10 years and will join Daiwa SBCM Europe as head of global debt syndicate, his most recent position at Nomura. Commenting on the move, Asbury said: "I am very excited to be joining Daiwa SBCM. The challenge of building up a strong debt syndicate team with the full support of the Daiwa Group is something I am very much looking forward to."

Emerging market syndicate officials accused Argentina of abusing the euro market and damaging its credibility this week, when the republic launched a four year Eu500m transaction while investors were still struggling to absorb a recent deluge of Latin American paper.

Andrew 'Asbo' Asbury has left Nomura after 10 years and will join Daiwa SBCM Europe as head of global debt syndicate, his most recent position at Nomura. Commenting on the move, Asbury said: "I am very excited to be joining Daiwa SBCM. The challenge of building up a strong debt syndicate team with the full support of the Daiwa Group is something I am very much looking forward to."