Bank of America Merrill Lynch's new global co-heads of capital markets last week brought to an end weeks of fevered politicking and speculation when they announced the next layer of the firm's capital markets management structure. There was one high-profile casualty, with Amir Hoveyda now set for pastures new. Mark Baker reports.

Taking the market by surprise last week, Greece succeeded in raising part of the funding it needs ahead of sizeable bond redemptions due in April and May. However, ultimately it may be the very austerity measures it announced last week that will impair its ability to achieve its objectives if the economy continues to perform as it did last year. Michael Winfield explains.

Alliance & Leicester last week successfully priced Fosse 2010-1, the first UK RMBS without a put option since 2008. Though the deal raised a relatively chunky £1.4bn, it could have been larger had the wider price expectations of some investors been taken into account. William Thornhill and Jean-Marc Poilpre report.

Competition between exchanges for a piece of the US options market has just become more intense with the entry of BATS. With more start-ups set to follow, is the industry about to experience a shake-up? Gareth Gore reports.

The underwritten debt backing Merck KGaA's bid for Millipore is a shot in the arm for the bank lending market, which is now proving itself increasingly open minded as competition for mandates intensifies. For those borrowers looking for loans to support their expansion plans, where short-term bridges were the only option last year, longer-term tranches are once again available. Ouida Taffe and David Cox report.

Blockbuster's subordinate lenders find themselves between a rock and a hard place as senior secured bondholders that bought US$675m of secured notes while the company veered toward collapse last year are poised to take the company, lock stock and barrel. Philip Scipio reports.

South Africa made a stylish return to the US dollar market with a record-breaking US$2bn 10-year offering that traded strongly in the secondary market. The success of the deal reflects not only the Republic's specific fiscal performance but also the strength of EM sovereign balance sheets in general. John Weavers reports.

While some banks were reeling from the painful news that the IPO of AIG's Asian arm for up to US$20bn had been blown off course by a bid for the unit from Prudential, other firms were celebrating their roles on the resulting US$21bn rights issue. The deal is an ambitious one, but banks were lining up last week to take up the 80-day risk entailed in underwriting the transaction. Ian Forrest and Owen Wild report.

"Vedanta in sensible CB shock" could have been the headline from the equity-linked market last week. After two controversial deals that traded drastically lower straight after close, the mining outfit could not afford to get it wrong again. The simple expedient of not pushing too hard on pricing did the trick and a wide range of investors took the paper. Owen Wild reports.