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Telenet, a Belgian telecommunications company, has entered a currency swap to convert a U.S. dollar discount bond into euros.

Supply in the asset-backed market is expected to drop this year, marking the first time in the securitization market's relatively short history that growth has stalled.

Who says finance isn't funny?

Corporate bond strategists say the investment-grade and high-yield markets will continue to offer attractive returns this year, despite expectations that interest rates will rise and that last year's double-digit returns squeezed most of the juice out of fixed-income spreads.

USAA Investment Management Company, which manages $3 billion in taxable fixed income, is taking on a defensive investment posture and plans to buy short-term, floating-rate corporate bonds.

Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, a Swiss asset manager with roughly E4.12 billion in euro- and sterling-denominated corporate bonds, favors high-beta names as valuations in both the sterling and euro markets remain expensive.

--Duncan Yin, a principal at CRT Capital Group, on what bank lenders to Parmalat can expect.

The European Securitisation Forum has established a taskforce to address an Italian law that covers securitization, in a move that could lead to the rise of new asset classes.

--Michelle Russell-Dowe, portfolio manager at Hyperion Capital Management, on how several factors combined to fuel a blockbuster year for home equity asset-backeds in 2003, and how the market's unlikely to see a repeat performance this year.

Seoul-based Korea First Bank, with KRW37.1 trillion (USD31.6 billion) in assets, is planning to invest in synthetic collateralized debt obligations for the first time. Y.H. Shin, assistant manager in the treasury department, said the firm has gathered information about the instruments and may invest next year.