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Australia Arrangers BA Australia, Citibank and Westpac have decided to hold their commitments in the A$500m bridging loan for the acquisition of BHP assets by Duke Energy until the bridge can be taken out by a longer term financing.

* National Australia Bank Ltd Rating: Aa3/AA

Was there a minor split between little PaineWebber in London and one of its top salesladies, the stunning and totally alluring Alo Abed? Was its dispute taken to court, but averted at the very last minute? Did Alo emerge smiling all over her beautiful face? Normally we don't write about titchy, witchy PaineWebber in London, which is too small, too boring and too insignificant to merit the attention of our readers. However, the firm does retain an excellent salesforce and, by paying out commissions that some bulge bracket houses would think were scandalous, the socially ambitious Alo Abed was soon earning more than £1m a year.

A team of international investment banks will shortly be appointed as global co-ordinators for the forthcoming flotation of GratisTel International, the Swedish company behind Europe's first mobile sponsored telephone service. The company announced this week that it may seek a listing for its common shares in New York in addition to a local float in Stockholm.

* Alliance Funding Corp launched its first securitisation of the year on Wednesday with a $525m issue wrapped by monoline insurer FGIC. Launched through Alliance Mortgage Loan Trust 1999-1, the transaction marked the return of this regular issuer to the market and was eagerly snapped up by investors.

PPM America, an asset management subsidiary of Prudential, this week launched a $653.8m collateralised bond obligation, offering investors a variety of forms in which to take exposure to high yield bonds. "There was huge interest from Europe in the senior tranches," said a syndicate official at sole manager CSFB. "We had 18 orders, and sold 80% of the triple-A into Europe, to banks, and some Libor funds. PPM is a very good manager, in size and performance, and we were heavily oversubscribed."

Compagnie Vauban, the French property company, and Greenwich NatWest broke new ground last Friday when they launched a Eu228.67m securitisation of apartment block rents, using one of the first UK-style secured loan structures in the French market. Vauban was set up by Vauban Foncier SA of Belgium in 1991, at the start of the French property market's slump, to buy city centre blocks across France, often from forced sellers.