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Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA Amount: $2bn

Rating: A3/BBB/BBB+ Amount: Eu300m

Rating: Aaa/AAA Amount: $2bn (fungible with $3bn issue launched 01/03/01)

Rating: A Amount: Eu400m

Mandated arrangers Commerzbank, Danske Bank and LB Kiel have been mandated to arrange the new $150m five year revolver for Finnforest Oyi. The deal will be launched into syndication next week. Proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes and to refinance the borrower's $130m bullet facility which was secured in February 1998. Mandated arrangers were Nordea and Commerzbank.

Two new deals for Iranian borrowers - a $100m 1-1/2 year facility for Iranian Petroleum Corporation (IPC) and a $150m three year club-style loan for the Iranian Foreign Investment Company (IFIC) - were launched by Standard Chartered this week. They are the first syndicated facilities from the country this year and may presage a number of large project finance deals.

Fixed income bankers were this week cautiously optimistic about the bond market's ability to remain open in the event of a US-led war with Iraq, the prospects of which should become clearer today (Friday) after chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has reported his latest findings to the UN security council. Although France, Germany, Russia, and now China are likely to push for further weapons inspections, the likelihood of war increased this week, as the US and the UK focused on Iraq's missile programme and the release of a recording said to be from Osama Bin Laden calling for Muslims to resist any invasion of Iraq.

Football securitisation is back in the limelight this week, but for all the wrong reasons. The collapse of Fiorentina's Lit67.5bn securitisation in September 2002 sent shockwaves through the market. It appeared to vindicate bankers who doubted that football clubs were suitable for the financing technique.

Arrangers Barclays, Citigroup/ SSSB, JP Morgan, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland hope to launch Six Continents' £1.5bn demerger facilities into syndication next week. Six Continents will announce full details of its demerger on Monday. The demerged hotels and retail businesses will each take out a £1.5bn loan. The retail business which is indicatively rated Baa3 will pay a margin north of 1% over Libor, while the hotel business will pay just below 1%.

Rating: A2/A/A+ Amount: $500m

The City of Bratislava has approached a select group of banks to bid for the mandate to arrange its debut $75m facility. The bank group should comprise both international and local banks. The borrower has asked for bids on various options from short to long term financing. The mandate should be awarded by the middle of March. Banks understood to be looking at the deal include Bank Austria Creditanstalt, ING and RZB.

The global junk bond default rate began to fall in January from the highs of 2002, according to Standard & Poor's (S&P). The rating agency announced that the 12 month global junk bond default rate fell to 8.33% in January, from 9.2% in December. The US rate fell to 6.56% from 7.24%, while the rate for the European Union fell to 13.01% from 13.48%. In 2002, more than $178bn of bonds went into default, led by issuers such as WorldCom and NTL.