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The UK water sector and securitisation market was rocked yesterday (Thursday) by the arrest of the chairman and chief executive of Wessex Water on suspicion of accepting a £1m bribe.

The UK water sector and securitisation market was rocked yesterday (Thursday) by the arrest of the chairman and chief executive of Wessex Water on suspicion of accepting a £1m bribe.

Rating: A1/A+ Amount: $1bn

Merrill Lynch has promoted its long serving equity analyst William Genco to chair its new research recommendations committee. Genco is being rewarded after working on Merrill research products since 1971. Most recently he covered environmental service stocks. In his new role he reports in New York to Robert McCann, the head of global securities research and economics.

Rating: A3/A- Amount: $600m (increased from $500m)

Wal-Mart has put its name to a $5bn EuroCP programme and Lehman Brothers has scooped the arranger mandate. It is the 10th signing from a US issuer this year and Todd Birlingmair, director of treasury operations at Wal-Mart, told EuroWeek that the programme was set up as a back-up facility as the company felt the time was right to increase its liquidity by tapping the European markets. "We have a $10bn USCP programme in place that typically has outstandings of more than $2bn a year," he said, "but as the Euro programme is a back-up, the amount we issue will depend on the pricing we can get. But we are hoping to fund at similar levels as we do in the US."

Dollar investors began to put the summer's woes behind them this week showing strong appetite for successful benchmark corporate transactions from Citigroup, GMAC, Viacom and Verizon. Viacom was sold out in under two hours and GMAC's book was oversubscribed in less than two days - suggesting investors are hungry for paper after a barren few months.

Guarantor: Financial Security Assurance Amount: £35.181m

Several banks are waiting for the preliminary information memorandum for the $1.7bn expansion financing for Aluminium Bahrain BSC (Alba). These banks are believed to be: ABC, ANZ, Bank of Bahrain & Kuwait, Deutsche and SMBC; ABN Amro, Arab Bank and Crédit Agricole Indosuez; BNP Paribas, Barclays Capital, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and HSBC; and Citigroup/SSB, GIB, Mizuho and National Bank of Bahrain.

The Australian government has received the final bids for the Western Sydney Orbital Road project and is evaluating two proposals. The project entails the construction of a 39km toll road on a build, operate, own and transfer basis that will link Hume highway, south of Sydney, with Pennant Hills road and the F3 freeway to the north of Sydney.

Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) has made its annual return to the syndicated loans market with a $320m receivables backed facility which has been launched into syndication. The deal has been well received with one banker telling EuroWeek, "This is a one-off deal - it is well structured and it works. You put your money in, you get your money back. Year after year it's that simple."

Rating: Aa3/AA- (Moody's/Fitch) Amount: £100m