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Madrid-basedIberdrola International last Monday pegged a EUR100 million ($107 million) bond offering against European overnight interest rates to tap demand from French banks for such floating-rate exposure.

Deutsche Bank is set to merge its European energy teams this summer under the leadership of Mike Hill, head of oil and gas. Hill will replace Michael Raida, managing director and head of European utilities, who has resigned. Hill was out of the office late last week and could not be reached for comment. The move follows a decision to scale back its U.S. project finance business earlier this year (PFR, 1/27).

WestLB has reorganized its New York structured finance business and done away with its head of power slot. Under the new structure the previously separate financial solutions, oil and gas and power groups have been combined, and Jay Sood the former head of the power area has been re-assigned, according to market officials. Sood did not return calls seeking comment. One industry official says the move most likely reflects the fact it makes sense to run a combined unit given the current market conditions in the energy sector. Calls to Manfred Knoll, head of structured finance for the U.S., were not returned. The new co-heads of the combined financial solutions and energy unit are George Suspanic and Bran Raskovic.

CDC Globeleq, a U.K. government owned IPP in London, is holding talks with ABB Equity Ventures and EDF International about acquiring an 288 MW power plant that they jointly own in the Ivory Coast. Stephen Cake, director of new business development for Asia and Africa at Globeleq, says the newly built combined-cycle gas turbine plant is one of a handful of power plants its considering acquiring in Africa.

KeySpan issued $300 million in senior unsecured notes last week to repay commercial paper previously issued to redeem $447 million of long-term debt. The $300 million was split equally between a 10- and a 30-year tranch, with coupons of 4.65% and 5.875%, respectively.

There has been some recovery in the tenor of long-term offtake contracts sought by power purchasers, but the long end of the market, at around the five-year mark, is still well below the 10-15 year range seen a few years ago. "Long-term power contracts are in the five-year range which is better [than before]," Marce Fuller, ceo at Mirant, told attendees. "Right now we don't see a lot of real long-term contracts available."

Morgan Stanley has hired Gavin Templeton, a U.K. gas trader at BP in London, in a similar position. He replaces Simon Stanley, v.p., who left the firm at the beginning of this year to trade gas at Deutsche Bank in London (PFR, 2/3), says a market watcher. Templeton joins the U.S. investment bank at the end of April after six weeks of gardening leave.

*Portland General Electric, a utility subsidiary of Enron, may be responsible for a portion of a $111 million tax bill that the Internal Revenue Service has slapped on Enron as part of its bankruptcy proceedings (The Oregonian, 4/4).

Houston-based Dynegy landed a three tranche loan refinancing last week totaling $1.66 billion with pricing starting at 475 basis points over LIBOR. The restructuring talks have been center stage for several lenders who have been involved in the usual tussle over pricing and maturity (PFR, 3/23). One banker says that with a collateral package securing the loans, it wouldn't have made sense to reject the deal. The security is essentially all the company's assets, he says. Refinancing was originally slated to close March 7.

TimesSquare Capital Management may look to take some gains in the merchant energy sector as part of a move to reduce credit risk in its portfolio. Ron Bringewatt, high-yield portfolio manager at the New York firm, argues that the torrid pace of gains in the high-yield market since October is likely to reverse itself at some point. TimesSquare will move into higher quality sectors to prepare for the expected correction. Bringewatt would not give further details, other than to say that he would likely sell some Williams Co. 9.25% of '04 bonds rated Caa1/B.