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Vallimarescu eyes opportunities in local markets.

Central bank governor emphasizes the resilience of the financial system at a time of crisis.

A growing number of large leveraged acquisitions are being refinanced in the corporate securitization market. Sponsors are seizing on the competitive pricing compared to traditional leveraged loans to squeeze more leverage and higher values into their bids. It’s a growth market, but the technique only works for certain companies Louise Bowman reports.

Losses from trader error in December should have been reversible, securities house claims.

Higher underlying ratings will change the economics of the pub securitization market.

Hope Pascucci has resigned as joint global head of global capital markets at Deutsche Bank after six months in the role, to spend more time with her family. She has moved to Boston with her children and husband, Mike Pascucci, who retired from Merrill Lynch last year where he was head of credit trading. She was previously global head of debt capital markets and before that European head of DCM and global head of syndicate. Having joined Deutsche in 2000 and spearheaded the bank’s rise up the debt league tables, Pascucci is one of the best-known figures in the euro market. Thomas Gahan is the new sole head of GCM. He reports to Anshu Jain and Michael Cohrs, joint heads of the investment bank. Pascucci’s effective replacement is Ivor Dunbar, the new head of global capital markets, Europe and Asia, and he will run regionally debt, equity origination and syndication. He also continues to run global markets Europe. Pascucci’s former co-head, Richard Byrne, will now be head of GCM Americas.

Australia is going ahead with a scaled-down sale of its Telstra holdings. But tension persists between the telecom operator and the government.

JPMorgan Cazenove has moved quickly to replace David Sismey, who left for Goldman Sachs in August with Chris Babington, who has worked at Deutsche Bank for three years. He is an experienced FIG originator, previously at BNP Paribas and Paribas before the merger. He joins JPMorgan Cazenove as a director reporting to John Mayne, head of debt capital markets. He will look after northern Europe, with a particular focus on the UK. “We are pleased to have Babington joining us. Clients like him and we were very fortunate that he was looking for a change,” says Mayne.

* Harry Culham update: 6 February 2008

A management buyout, a large merger, an IPO, regional acquisitions and investment by Europe’s largest pharmaceuticals player – the past eight years have been anything but dull for the Czech Republic’s Zentiva. Company CFO Petr Sulc talks to Kathryn Wells about the challenges the company has faced and how it plans to finance further growth.

As a consequence of Merrill Lynch’s revolving door policy in FX, Steve Kemp has resigned from the Foreign Exchange Committee. Kemp, just one of the many global FX heads Merrill has had over the past decade, left the bank this summer. Merrill has had few representatives on the Federal Exchange Bank of New York-sponsored committee, which is seen as a prestigious role in the market. Members have to be invited on and there is no guarantee that Merrill will get to sit at the top table again.

Enormous energy is going into the creation of new Shariah-compliant finance structures for eager Middle Eastern corporates to fund themselves by appealing to Islamic investors and their growing pool of money. Every market participant expects the surging Islamic finance sector to keep on growing fast. But a key element is missing. Secondary trading in these instruments is severely limited. Sudip Roy suggests that for the recent increase in primary market activity to be sustainable, more attention needs to be devoted to trading infrastructure.