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Promina Group, the re-named Australian and New Zealand arm of the UK's Royal&SunAlliance Insurance Group, has begun pre-marketing what could be Australia's largest initial public offering since 1998. Goldman Sachs and Macquarie Bank are joint global co-ordinators of the issue, which could result in Royal&Sun selling all of Promina's shares to the public market.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia will price its $1bn global today (Friday). The senior notes have an average life of three years and are rated triple-A by Moody's and Standard & Poor's. Price guidance for Medallion Trust Series 2003-1G is 19bp over Libor. A junior tranche of A$25m, with an average life of 5.04 years, will be issued domestically. Legal maturity for all tranches is in December 2033.

Spreads in the Asian bond markets ballooned this week following news of an accounting scandal at Korean conglomerate SK Group, raising concerns that the pipeline of deals could close for weeks to come. On Tuesday, 10 executives of SK Group were indicted for fraud over allegations that SK Global, the chaebol's trading subsidiary, overstated its profits by $1.2bn.

With three deals priced in as many months and another due shortly, the global market is proving increasingly valuable for Australian issuers who face unattractive pricing in the domestic market. St George Bank is the latest originator to launch an SEC registered transaction, and the first bank to do so in 2003. JP Morgan priced the $1.05bn senior tranche last Friday at 20bp over Libor, achieving the tightest pricing for a global Australian mortgage deal since Interstar's $1bn offering in July 2002, which Barclays Capital priced at 18bp over Libor.

CDC IXIS Capital Markets North America has lured a 31-staffer strong securitization team from CIBC World Markets as part of its push into the U.S. securitization market. Ken Wormser, managing director and head of the asset securitization group at CIBC, is leading the charge, and will report to Ramine Rouhani, head of the capital markets group at CDC, in New York, according to an official familiar with the situation. Neither Wormser nor Rouhani returned calls.

The asset backed Euro commercial paper (ABCP) market looks set to continue its phenomenal growth this year. Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba) is planning a synthetic programme in the next few months, a new Brazil-linked programme has been launched and a host of other issuers have facilities in the pipeline. Rheinhard Redeker, part of the treasury team at Helaba, confirmed that the bank is in talks with various dealers about launching an ABCP conduit, Optus Alpha. The issuer has been working on the programme for the last six months and is expected to produce a rare synthetic structured facility, using the default swap market to take on credit risk.

ABN Amro has strengthened its financial institutions and public sector (FIPS) team for Asia Pacific in a bold effort to steal more market share. Mark Stadler was appointed in September to head ABN's FIPS business in Asia Pacific, central and eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Since then he has worked to improve Asia Pacific coverage, which accounts for about 35% of total revenues of his group.

Amount: Eu50m Maturity: April 4, 2008

Guarantor: Anglo Irish Bank Corp plc Rating: Baa2/BBB+ (Moody's/Fitch)

Shares in French engineering group Alstom crashed 60% this week after the company said it was selling two of its most valuable businesses and raising Eu600m in new equity. The company raised Eu636m last year through a rights issue led by BNP Paribas and JP Morgan, under its Restore Value plan. The capital increase, however, was not enough to help turn the company around and Alstom's share price has continued to fall.

Rating: Aaa/AAA Amount: A$220m

Spreads in the Asian bond markets ballooned this week following news of an accounting scandal at Korean conglomerate SK Group, raising concerns that the pipeline of Asian deals could close for weeks to come. On Tuesday, 10 executives of SK Group were indicted for fraud over allegations that SK Global, the chaebol's trading subsidiary, overstated its profits by $1.2bn.