Briefs: CBA and Silver Chef make hybrid plans, RBNZ picks markets head and ING Direct not for sale

Commonwealth Bank of Australia may launch the sale of A$1 billion to A$1.5 billion in hybrid securities as early as Monday, Reuters reported. Speculation of a fresh CBA hybrid has circulated for a few weeks. One purpose of the funding is to help refinance an earlier hybrid that is due for repayment later this year. Morgan Stanley and Macquarie will join CBA in marketing the securities.

The small business equipment financier, Silver Chef, is hoping to capitalise on its strong earnings report earlier in the week with its launch of an issue of senior unsecured notes yesterday. The company is aiming to raise between $20 million and $30 million, and will pay a fixed rate of 8.5 per cent on the unrated six-year notes. FIIG Securities is the lead arranger for the notes. Silver Chef reported a 34.4 per cent increase in net profit for the year to June.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand says it has appointed Mark Perry as head of financial markets. He starts work on Monday week. Perry was head of financial markets at the Bank of New Zealand for five years until 2006 before taking a career break and then starting a business.

ING Direct's business in Australia is "not affected" the announcement of plans to sell the bank's corresponding business in Canada to Scotiabank, the Dutch-based financial services group said yesterday. ING had previously foreshadowed the sale of a small number of its retail banking businesses. It has consistently said before that the Australian business (and also those in Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) are not for sale.