Baker & McKenzie's City securitisation team has secured a role advising National Australia Bank (NAB) on a $10bn (£5.3bn) US-style 'arbitrage' financing.

The firm's London arm advised NAB on the two-stage CentreStar programme, which completed in September with the creation of a vehicle to issue investment grade commercial paper, backed by a rolling portfolio of debt securities held in an existing programme.

The securitisation, led by former Norton Rose finance partners Jonathan Walsh and Bruce Somer, is the second issuing vehicle Bakers has helped create for NAB after the original vehicle and under-lying programme was signed off in July.

Both issuing vehicles are backed by a 'conduit' that can invest up to $10bn in debt securities.

The structure, which is more common in the US, allows the issuer to benefit from cheaper debt and is used to fund securitisations structured for the bank's corporate client base.

NAB has been a client of Walsh and Somer since before they joined Bakers at the end of 2005 as part of a four-partner finance team.

Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft structured finance partner Christian Parker advised the administrator of the vehicle, QSR Management. James Hancock at New York's Seward & Kissel advised the lead manager and White & Case advised the trustee.

Walsh told Legal Week: "We are very pleased that the first structure was carefully engineered and robust enough to allow the second one to be rolled out within the space of a month. If this is as successful as it appears to be to date, we hope we will be doing another one fairly soon."

The deal underlines Bakers' ambitions to bolster its profile in the competitive City structured finance market.

The CentreStar deal comes after fellow former Norton Rose partners Simon Porter and Vincent Keaveny acted on two securities deals for Banco Santander in July with a total value of $1.8bn (£975m).