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Kevin Muzilla US firms Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and Weil, Gotshal & Manges have advised on the first refinancing this year of a leveraged buy-out (LBO). The firms acted for lead manager Deutsche Bank and United Biscuits respectively on the $326 million refinancing of last year's LBO of UK biscuit maker by the Finalream consortium, which included Cinven, Paribas Affaire Industrielles, DB Capital Partners and Nabisco The refinancing of the United Biscuits LBO was done through a high-yield bond issue of two of senior subordinated notes, one of £120 million ($173 million) at 10% and redeemable in 2011 and the other of euro 160 million ($143 million) also due in 2011.

Lucent Technologies, advised by Cravath, Swaine &Moore, finally pulled off a $3.6 billion initial public offering (IPO) of its optoelectronics division, Agere Systems, in late March, bringing a welcome boost to equity work for some lawyers in the US.

Although China has operated stock exchanges for a decade, it has never delisted a company. Now the Chinese regulator is tightening its rules to prevent unprofitable companies from continuing to have their shares traded. Liu Haili of Richards Butler, Hong Kong, explains

The Resolution of the Governor of the Bank of Italy dated November 28 2000 has introduced new provisions on the drafting of the fund rules of common investment funds, established in Italy pursuant to the European Communities Regulation 1989 (undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities – so-called harmonized funds).

The EU Committee of Wise Men chaired by Alexandre Lamfalussy has issued its final report on the regulation of European securities markets.

Gilles Thieffry of Andersen Legal, London, looks at the controversial Lamfalussy Report and argues that more needs to be done to promote a pan-European securities regulator if the authorities are to keep up with market realities

The Finnish Financial Supervision (FFS), the authority supervising the Finnish securities market, issued on March 29 2001 an official statement regarding the offering of financial services over information networks. The use of the internet and other network systems as a means of offering financial services has grown rapidly in the recent years. The purpose of the statement is both to promote the generally accepted banking and marketing principles and to improve the safety of using financial network services.

Shearman & Sterling has advised global coordinators Merrill Lynch and Banco Santander Central Hispanico on the controversial listing of Iberia, Spain's flag carrier airline. The US firm's Paris-based corporate partner Manuel Orillac worked on the deal while Cuatrecasas capital markets specialist Fernando Torrente advised on Spanish law. UK firm Simmons & Simmons acted for the selling shareholder, Sociedad Estatal de Participiciones Industriales (SEPI), the government industrial holding company responsible for the country's privatization programme.

Angela Clist Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy are advising on a whole business-style securitization in the UK utility industry, involving a £2 billion ($2.86 billion) bond issue to finance the sale of Welsh Water to equity-less company Glas Cymru. The deal is the UK's first non-equity funded utility financing, with profits to be returned to customers through rebates on water bills. Stephen Curtis is leading the Clifford Chance team acting for RBS Financial Markets and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, which are marketing the issue for around a month, before an expected closing in mid-May.

Linklaters & Alliance member De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek is set to become the first Dutch firm to open in China. De Brauw, along with ten other firms, got its licence from the Chinese ministry of justice in Beijing in the latest round of licence distribution. The office will open in Shanghai in September, complementing Linklaters' exisiting office in Beijing. De Brauw's other offices are in Brussels, London, New York and Prague.