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Speculation intensified this week over who will fill the vacant role of head of syndications at ABN Amro's London office. Insiders suggest that about five people have been interviewed and that the bank will hire an outsider. Gary Griffiths' sudden departure last month created the vacancy. The new hiring for Chase Manhattan's London syndicated loans team will be made from within, probably from a different department.

Denmark ABN Amro, Citibank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi have raised $700m for the $500m credit facility for Borealis, the Danish petrochemicals company, with general syndication still to close.

THE Eu550m revolving credit for Thomson SA has finally been launched to co-arrangers -- but at prices that do not reflect the harsher market environment seen since September. Although bankers had expected the pricing to be in the high 20s at least, the fees have been pared, reflecting the French state guarantee and a cancellation clause if the government relinquishes its ownership.

Ghana Standard Chartered and Ghana International Bank have signed the highly successful $320m annual pre-export finance facility for Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod).

China Negotiations have begun between international creditors for Guangzhou International Trust and Investment Corporation (Gzitic) and the Chinese government on a delayed $30m loan.

BUCKING the trend of industry-wide layoffs, Paribas is continuing its policy of new hires -- albeit at a pace bank officials say reflects the uncertain market environment. Latest on board are Michael Platt as head of proprietary trading and Catherine Yelverton as head of high yield trading. Both report to global head of credit Brian Lazell, with Yelverton reporting additionally to Tony May, global head of high yield.

LEAD manager Goldman Sachs has postponed the IPO of Rapala, the global market leader in the fishing lure industry. The Finnish company was to have raised FIM650m ($127m) through the sale of stock to international and local investors.

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter hopes to launch the £2bn securitisation of contracted and future revenues for Formula One, the UK company that promotes international motor sport, in the next two weeks, and will issue a prospectus next week. "The premarketing phase has gone extremely well, considering the ugly market we had last week," said Jim O'Brien, head of investment grade credit trading at Morgan Stanley. "We have three teams of salespeople visiting European investors with representatives of Formula One, and another team in Asia, and the feedback from investors has been very positive."

NOMURA International has begun marketing the £155m securitisation of cashflows from 569 tenanted pubs for UK brewer Marston, Thompson & Evershed. The deal will be Nomura's first agency securitisation in Europe -- the bookrunner plans to launch the bond in two to three weeks.

VIRGIN Rail Group, which operates two train services in the UK, has appointed Royal Bank of Scotland and Lombard GATX as preferred financiers for its two orders of high technology tilting trains. The deals are set to close by year end. Rolling stock leasing company Angel Train Contracts, which RBS acquired from Nomura's principal finance group in December 1997, will buy 55 trains with a maximum speed of 140 miles per hour from Alstom and Fiat Ferroviaria for over £500m, and lease them to VRG for its West Coast Main Line route.

* Australian investment bank Macquarie Bank is considering selling PUMA, the mortgage securitisation business that has become one of the country's most successful mortgage backed issuers. The bank has invited bids, but not committed itself to a sale. PUMA is a rare animal -- it neither originates mortgages nor lead manages securitisations. Instead, it processes mortgages written by independent non-bank originators into securitisable pools, and awards mandates to investment banks.

A convertible grants the bondholder the right to convert the bond into a predetermined number of shares of common stock, i.e. the bondholder is long a call on the issuer's stock.