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Double-A issuance featured strongly this week, with $2.2bn issued through 97 trades in a wide range of currencies. Allstate Life Funding closed the biggest yen deal from the double-A category, a ¥10bn issue that matures on March 11, 2004. The note was priced at 3.3bp over Libor and carries a coupon of three month Libor flat. Westdeutsche Landesbank tapped the Polish zloty sector with a Z50m four year issue. The note has an annual coupon of 7%.

Barclays Bank is arranging a new $600m refinancing for British American Tobacco (BAT). The deal will be targeted at BAT's close relationship banks.

Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA Amount: Eu1bn

Rating: Aa2/AA Amount: $2bn (increased from $1bn)

The latest batch of documents to be subpoenaed from Citigroup show that Bernie Ebbers, the disgraced former chief executive of WorldCom, was able to use his influential position as a valued member of the bank's retail client list to gain preferential access to "hot" IPOs that personally netted him more than $11m over a four year period from 1996 to 2000. The most recent revelations about Citigroup's IPO allocation practices have caused the bank's share price to fall sharply. News of the large profits that WorldCom officials made, combined with a downgrade from Prudential Securities on the bank's stock to "sell", sent Citigroup's share price spiralling down by more than 10% when the markets opened in the US on Tuesday, after Monday's Labor Day holiday.

Never let it be said that our opinions in these columns go completely unnoticed. Didn't we suggest that SG and ABN Amro had no reason to be involved in the hugely competitive world of corporate finance and M&A advisory work, where costs rise ever upwards towards the stars? And did anyone listen? It looks that way, because before you could say "Whatever happened to Stephen Brisby?" SG had pulled down its investment banking colours and run up the white flag. The French nation went into mourning and Tricolours were knocked down at half price to passing Japanese tourists on the Champs Elysée.

Mandated lead arrangers BNP Paribas, Bank Austria, JP Morgan and the EBRD have signed a debut $35m facility for TES Media. The facility is divided into two tranches.

Mandated arranger RZB is waiting for one last bank to join the Eu20m five year facility for Roskilde Bank before syndication closes today (Friday). Signing is planned for the end of September.

Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA Amount: NZ$100m Obligations foncières

This month bankers had expected to see voluminous new issuance in the dollar swap market, with consequent contraction in spread levels. In fact, the first week of the new month proved largely uneventful in this department, and swap spreads climbed gradually during the week. By the close of trading in New York yesterday (Thursday), the two year swap spread was at 34bp, the five year was at 55bp and the 10 year was at 54.75bp. Five and 10 year prices are around 2.5bp wider than a week ago.

One year on and the EuroMTN market is still feeling the effects of September 11. Corporate MTN issuance has been a scarce commodity, but triple-A borrowers are flocking to the market to take advantage of the investor flight to quality. In the month after last year's attack triple-B issuance fell to $2.45bn - its lowest level for two years - but in August this year volumes barely reached $1.8m.

Rating: Aaa/AAA Amount: $120m