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Bankers are expecting Jamaica to announce today (Friday) the winner of a hotly contested $200m bond mandate, the only sovereign new issue up for grabs in the Latin America and Caribbean region. Jamaica called for proposals in late April, saying it had a $500m funding requirement for this year. A deal of at least $200m is expected, probably in the intermediate to longer end of the curve.

Banks have responded enthusiastically to the Eu650m senior secured facility backing the acquisition of the 64.24% share in Italian lottery operator Lottomatica by De Agostini Group and Investitori Associati through special purpose vehicle Tyche. Mandated lead arrangers BNP Paribas, Lehman Brothers and Mediobanca expect syndication to be wrapped up by next week.

Citibank (Tokyo) has launched the annual rollover of the ¥70bn 364 day fundraising for Morgan Stanley Japan. The original deal was completed in 1999 and the terms and conditions have remained the same. Citibank has invited the banks in the original syndicate to extend their commitments for a further year; if they refuse then the arranger will send out invitations to take up the excess funds.

Barclays Capital is arranging a £80m debut facility for John David Sports plc. Proceeds support the borrower's £53.2m acqusition of the sports fashion division of Blacks Leisure Group.

Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland are waiting for four relationship banks to commit to the £680m acquisition facility for Johnson Press before they close the books. Most sub-underwriters, which were invited to commit tickets of £75m with a final intended take of £35m, have already joined the deal and signing is expected soon.

Bank of Scotland has upped its $25 billion debt instrument facility by $15 billion to $40 billion. To help distribute the extra paper, Bank of Scotland has added two dealers to the named dealer panel. The dealers are BNP Paribas, which has placed $333.85 million-worth of debt off seven trades for the issuer this year, and HSBC, which has also been an active reverse enquiry dealer, placing nine trades worth over $400 million for the issuer in 2002.

Aberdeen Asset Managers showed its support for the embattled split capital trust sector this week with an unprecedented commitment of £6m to shore up its Enhanced Zero Trust. Aberdeen has been forced to launch a unique survival package for the Enhanced Zero Trust that has seen its value collapse since September. In the last year the share price of the trust has crashed from over 90p to 2.25p. The trust was set up in 1999 to invest in the zero and income shares of split capital trusts, which were previously seen as a steady and safe investment. But a combination of factors, centring around plummeting European stock markets, has seen the value of the split capital sector swiftly eroded.

Galleon Capital Corporation (Galleon) is the issuer off a new $5 billion multi-currency ABCP facility. The administrative agent for Galleon is State Street Global Markets. The dealers are CSFB and Citibank. Standard & Poor's and Moody's rate notes off the programme A-1 and P-1.

Rating: Aaa Amount: Sfr300m

Eurotunnel responded to demands from its investors this week when it offered revised plans for a further restructuring of its £9bn debt financing. The company announced an increase in the price it will offer in a buyback of subordinated debt and the elimination of a proposed interest deferral on some of the remaining debt. As detailed in EuroWeek 746, arrangers Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Merrill Lynch have planned an on-balance sheet transaction to ensure a more direct benefit to the company than that achieved by the repackaging of junior bank debt last year, Fixed-Link Finance BV. A new tranche of long dated fixed rate junior debt, tier 1A, will be issued by Fixed-Link Finance 2 to buy a portion of the subordinated debt and to repay some of the existing junior debt at par, while extending the maturity of the senior debt.

Morgan Stanley has begun marketing the first property securitisation in its European Loan Conduit (ELOC) programme to incorporate European assets. The bank hopes this will be the first of many ELOC deals in which a corporate disposes of its real estate assets. As reported in EuroWeek 740, Morgan Stanley is preparing transactions backed by properties from Electricité de France (EdF) and electronics company Thales. The first, ELOC 9, is a Eu458m securitisation expected in around two weeks. ELOC has traditionally focused on the UK and most deals have been backed by commercial mortgages originated by Morgan Stanley itself.