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WARBURG Dillon Read has won the mandate to arrange a £850m credit that will back First Group plc's acquisition of Ryder Public Transportation Services, a subsidiary of Ryder System Inc of the US. The financing consists of a £250m 18 month bullet loan (tranche 'A') that will be taken out by a capital market transaction, a $250m five year amortising term loan (tranche 'B1'), a £90m five year amoritsing term loan (tranche 'B2') and a £350m five year revolving credit.

IN A NORMAL week in the Euroloan market, Air Liquide's £4.3bn senior debt facility backing its acquisition of 50% of British Oxygen Company would command bankers' attention outright. However, following Elf Acquitaine's bold counter bid for Totalfina, a move that involves a breathtaking Eu18bn of underwritten senior debt, Air Liquide's money raising efforts have been shunted into second place, in terms of lenders' interests.

Are the rumours true that the mercurial Stephen West, formerly one of the brightest stars in the Warburg Dillon Read universe, is about to reemerge on the Euromarket scene? West and Steve Oristaglio, who moved to Puinara in Boston, turned the old Swiss Bank Corporation from a sleepy also-ran into a Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe Favourite. Since West quit last December, however, Warburg would be lucky to win a selling plate at Thirsk or Plumpton.

Banque Nationale de Paris this week joined the small but growing club of banks to publicly execute synthetic collateralised loan obligations - the bank issued Eu180m of bonds conveying the bottom 11% layer of risk on Eu1.635bn of corporate credit exposure. JP Morgan pioneered the technique with its Bistro structure in December 1997 - since then the bulk of trades have been privately and anonymously placed, but last October UBS launched its Eisberg Finance leveraged CLO, and this year Deutsche Bank, Citibank and Commonwealth Bank of Australia have all issued bonds conveying risk on much larger asset portfolios.

ELF ACQUITAINE demonstrated the remarkable depth of underwriting capabilities in the Euroloan market this week by winning a record Eu18bn of committed bank debt financing from four banks, to back its audacious Eu48bn cash and share counter bid for Totalfina.

ELF ACQUITAINE demonstrated the remarkable depth of underwriting capabilities in the Euroloan market this week by winning a record Eu18bn of committed bank debt financing from four banks, to back its audacious Eu48bn cash and share counter bid for Totalfina.

The thriving European high yield debt market will host up to $3bn of new issues over the next two weeks as issuers line up to take advantage of the surge of UK and continental funds into the sector. The primary market saw little activity this week, but the calendar up to the August break is hectic. In the next few days, United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC) will launch at least $1.5bn of securities, and deals are also set to be completed for Versatel, Premier Brands, Pannon GSM, Iaxis, Canandaigua Wines and BSN.