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THE APPOINTMENT of the bookrunners for the IPO of CosmOTE means the mandates for the all big telecoms deal expected in Europe this year have been handed out. Merrill Lynch won the title of sole global co-ordinator for the IPO of CosmOTE, Greek incumbent operator OTE's mobile unit. The issue, which is likely to consist of about 15% of the unit, is tipped to raise Eu750m-Eu900m. Schroder Salomon Smith Barney will be joint bookrunner with Merrill Lynch.

GOLDMAN SACHS has recruited Zar Amrolia from Deutsche Bank as a managing director and co-chief operating officer of global foreign exchange. Jon Lopatin, head of global foreign exchange sales and head of foreign exchange e-commerce retires at the end of November. Amrolia will arrive at the beginning of November, eventually replacing him.

GRANADA Media has dismissed as "pure speculation" reports that Morgan Stanley Dean Witter has been appointed to manage the IPO of ONdigital, the media unit Granada Media and Carlton Communications both have 50% stakes in. The deal is expected to raise about £600m and come to market in the second half of this year. "The IPO is going to happen," said a new media analyst in London. "When Charles Allen [chairman of Granada Media] bought the United TV assets earlier this year, he said the ONdigital IPO was very much on the agenda, and he recently reaffirmed that."

HSBC has achieved its highest position in the MTNWeek league tables since the tables were first capped at $250 million in January 1999. The bank is now seventh in the table (see back page) with $4.56 billion issued off 97 trades since January 1. This is more than double the amount of debt HSBC lead managed in the same period last year. Most of the bank's business has been for corporates, traditionally one of its strongest client bases. Its three most recent trades were large deals for Scottish & Newcastle, Scottish Power and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain. But HSBC's success comes as a fellow UK house suffers a slump. Following the Royal Bank of Scotland takeover, Greenwich NatWest now languishes in 30th position in the league table. Its head of Euro-MTNs, Matt Pass, left last month leaving Kirsty McFarlane to run the desk on her own. A source at the bank says there are no plans to hire anyone else.

Hyder's bondholders were this week digesting Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgrade of the company's ratings from A- to BBB-, after US utility WPD emerged as the likely victor in the takeover battle with Nomura for the Welsh water utility. S&P had previously announced that Nomura's acquisition of Hyder would lead to a rating downgrade to BBB-, but had not commented on the consequences of a successful WPD bid.

ING BARINGS has taken Prudential Securities' 17 strong energy investment banking group. The hire includes all the bankers from Prudential's Houston office. The future of energy investment banking at Prudential Securities had been under discussion for some time, and senior members of the corporate finance group felt the energy effort was overstaffed. Prudential has yet to make a decision on the future of the Houston office, but said it remains committed to a focussed energy investment banking practice.

THE MARKET reacted favourably this week to the decision by the Japanese ministry of finance (MoF) to appoint four joint global co-ordinators of the NTT6 share sale, rather than three, the number standardised in the NTT4 and NTT5 placements. There also appears to be agreement that the four firms - Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Nikko Salomon Smith Barney and Nomura - will face tough negotiations with the MoF on the eventual fee structure for the jumbo issue. The sale is likely to raise around $11.5bn if priced at recent trading levels.

JP Morgan's programme origination department has suffered another blow. It has been dropped as arranger from Telenor's Euro-MTN programme. Only 2% of the issuers listed in MTNWare have ever dropped their arranger, according to the database. And this is the fifth time that JP Morgan has suffered this fate since January 1999. This move compounds a tough period for JP Morgan's origination team. After being dropped as dealer from eight programmes last year, it has been axed from a further five this year including Pacific Life Funding's facility and the prestigious SNS Bank's euro10 billion ($9.15 billion) programme. However, the US house's trading desk continues to be strong in most areas. It was voted most active dealer and best at reverse enquiry in MTNWeek's issuer survey in May. Deutsche Bank has been appointed in JP Morgan's place as arranger off Telenor's programme. And this is not the first time that Deutsche Bank has managed to wrestle an arrangership mandate off JP Morgan. It was appointed arranger off 3CIF's programme instead of JP Morgan in January 1999. And it replaced the US house as arranger off Imperial Tobacco's euro2 billion shelf earlier this year. Telenor refused to give a reason for its decision but the Norwegian issuer has taken the opportunity to double the size of the programme limit from $2 billion to $4 billion. Telenor has $1.97 billion outstanding off 25 issues, with the most recent trade being a ¥5 billion ($46.02 million) one-year deal paying Libor flat, which it issued in June. Though there was no one available from JP Morgan's transaction execution department to comment, a member of the bank's MTN trading desk said that losing the arrangership was not a matter of serious concern.

MORGAN STANLEY Dean Witter has followed its successful Highbury Finance sale and leaseback transaction for supermarket chain J Sainsbury plc with Dragon Finance BV, another special purpose securitisation vehicle for the UK retailer. "The difference to Highbury is the bond structure," said David Merchant, associate in securitisation at Morgan Stanley. "The underlying structure of the securitisation is much the same.

KLM, the Dutch airline company, has doubled the ceiling off its Euro-CP facility to euro500 million ($449.89 million). This is because the issuer wants more flexibility. Mark Biermans, treasurer at KLM, says: "Many banks are withdrawing from the short-term market, so we are increasing our direct access to investors." The issuer has no plans to sign an MTN programme, despite market rumours that they will sign. Biermans explains: "We have enough flexibility through our long-term financial leases and bank loans, so we are not planning an MTN."

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