Debt buybacks were prominent last week. Insurance Group Australia started the week by announcing that it had repurchased £36 million of subordinated bonds from a £250 million, twenty-year, non-call ten, issue undertaken in December 2006. IAG repurchased £108 million of the same debt in February at a 30 per cent discount to face value. That transaction yielded IAG a profit of $70 million and the latest buyback has delivered a further profit of $23 million.Further to its announcement the week before last, Broadcast Australia received tenders to buy back $160.5 million of the $250 million of its bonds maturing in July. The bonds will be purchased at 99.75 clean. Broadcast Australia has a further $250 million of bonds outstanding with a July 2012 maturity.On Thursday night our time, Macquarie Bank announced the results of its offer to buy back its US$350 million subordinated eurobond issue. Macquarie will buy back US$100.8 million of bonds at 60 cents in the dollar. The ten-year, non-call five, bonds were issued in March 2005 with a September 2015 maturity date. Settlement will be on Thursday. Lastly, Deutsche Bank has $350 million of subordinated bonds on issue in the domestic market that could have been called last week under the ten-year, non-call five, maturity structure. The fixed and floating rate bonds were issued in April 2004 at a margin of 50 basis points over swap/bank bills with a 50 bps step-up, if the bonds are not called.Having subordinated debt at 100 bps over bank bills for the next five years (the fixed rate bonds convert to floating, if not called) is obviously cheap, even with the diminishing capital benefit. As it did late last year with a European subordinated bond issue, Deutsche Bank did not call the bonds. Investors have been reminded that call options are just that, regardless of what structural incentives are built around them.