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Chi-X has announced that it is bringing its multilateral electronic equities trading platform to Japan, placing itself in direct competition with the oft-criticised Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The funding gaps at Depfa that forced the bail-out of parent bank Hypo Real Estate (HRE) are threatening to derail the modernization of London’s underground train system. Tube Lines’ improvement of the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines is reliant on funding from the Dublin-based bank for its roughly £2 billion ($3.1 billion) refinancing deal. Now that Depfa’s business model has proved unworkable in this environment, with the short-term markets no longer an option for funding the bank’s long-term assets, the Tube Lines project could be in danger. "Depfa’s credit line has dried up," says an analyst. "The bank has a funding commitment to Tube Lines, but the question now is whether or not it’s good for that commitment." The structure of the Tube Lines refinancing deal is not a common one. Apart from the issuer facilities, it comprises £1.15 billion in class A-1 notes, £95.26 million in class A-2C notes, £300 million in loans from the European Investment Bank and nearly £250 million in class B, C and D notes. Depfa’s involvement is across that spectrum, with the exception of the EIB loans. The bank is the issuer facilities provider and the purchaser of all the class B, C and D notes. The A-1 notes were all bought by Goldman Sachs, which then sold a portion of the notes back to Tube Lines and committed itself to buy them back in the future under a forward note purchase agreement (FNP). Goldman buys back the notes in instalments in accordance with an agreed schedule. There is then a similar FNP agreement in place between Goldman and Depfa, with the US bank selling the notes on to Depfa under their own agreed schedule. "Financing with an FNP over two banks is unusual," says Nicolas Painvin, senior director in Fitch Ratings’ Global Infrastructure and Project Finance Group. "We’ve never seen this before in the Fitch project finance portfolio, at least not on the transport side."

Inter-dealer broker GFI has poached a team of veterans from it its rival TFS-Icap. The move is likely to result in the defection of four or five of TFS-Icap’s staff in Tokyo and another veteran broker in Hong Kong, pending the resolution of contractual issues.

Kenan Altunis, global head of sales at UniCredit, has struck lucky and won a big lottery held on Long Island, New York. Altunis, who will receive $1 million a year for life, says he is slightly embarrassed by his slice of good fortune. He tells Euromoney that he will donate a portion of his annual windfall to charity and that he is looking into the possibility of supporting an orphanage in Iraq.

The credit crisis has, so far, raised Santander’s relative standing among its peers, as the Spanish bank has sidestepped some of the pitfalls of its rivals and picked up a few bargain acquisitions. The bank’s reputation for savvy deal-making has also been enhanced, making it surely one of the most sought after financial sector clients for any investment bank.

Beleaguered Barclays, Delphic Deutsche, bank bonuses and preempting press releases.

Libya has Africa’s largest oil reserves but last year it was only the continent’s third-biggest producer. So the decision of Bahraini Islamic investment bank Gulf Finance House to invest $400 million of initial equity into an energy infrastructure project there is understandable. This is especially so given that the bank says it will not be surprised if the Libyan government’s Economic and Social Fund, which is advising on the project, makes a similar sized equity injection. Libya’s National Oil Company is seeking to increase oil production by 1 million barrels a day in the next four years, while doubling the country’s gas capacity.

News that China’s National Development and Reform Commission is considering a new stimulus package in addition to the Rmb4 trillion ($586 billion) plan announced on November 9 will bring cheer to investors and analysts who regard the country’s growth as central to the prospects of an Asian, or indeed global, recovery from the present crisis.

Government provides a bridge for primary market funding.

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, has taken measures to counter the effects of decreasing petro-dollars. The president has reduced his support to foreign allies and is poised to make deeper cuts at home and abroad as oil prices plunge.

Rating downgrades threaten CLO structures.

Last month a non-asset trigger event was announced for the Granite master trust. This is securitization-speak for saying the Northern Rock master trust is dead. It is now a static pool – similar to a traditional pass-thru structure. The decision to allow the trust to breach – by allowing the seller’s (Northern Rock) interest to fall below 8.75% – increases the risk of note extension on short triple As with long legal final maturities and all non-triple A-rated notes. Even so, news of the event sent all Granite triple-A spreads wider – to 560/660bp, according to RBS ABS research.