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Eléctricité de France (EdF) exited Pechiney, the French aluminium company, on Wednesday and Thursday, raising Eu368m. EdF received the bulk of its 7.8% stake in the aluminium company when Pechiney was privatised in December 1995 and took the decision to sell its holding this week as part of a reweighting of its portfolio.

National Bank of Egypt is set to test market appetite for Middle Eastern risk with a new $250m term loan. The loan, which is yet to be mandated, will be the first fully syndicated credit for an Egyptian borrower since September 11 2001.

Poland * Republic of Poland

Small cap investors were relieved this week after an influential EU committee voted to change proposals to create a single prospectus for European equity and bond issuance. The proposals had threatened to damage the small-cap market across Europe, as the requirements would have been a burden for small companies and could have deterred some from issuing capital on the stock markets.

* Alpha Credit Goup plc Guarantor: Alpha Credit Bank AE

* Aareal Bank AG Rating: A+

Twenty-one euro trades were closed and some large volumes from US borrowers took the total to $1.09 billion. National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp did the largest note - a euro500 million ($434.85 million) trade that has a five-year tenor. The note pays an annual coupon of 6.500% and has a spread of 173 basis points over the mid swaps. JPMorgan and Lehman Brothers were the bookrunners. And Monumental Global Funding did a seven-year euro400 million trade. The note pays an annual coupon of 5.375%. JPMorgan led a euro100 million deal for its financial repackaged entity, Corsair (Netherlands). The note has a five-year maturity. Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten traded a three-year euro25 million note. It pays a semi-annual coupon of 3.200%. Caisse Centrale du Credit Immobilier de France closed a short-dated note. Its euro9.75 million equity-linked deal matures on September 6 of this year. Only KBC Ifima traded with a shorter maturity. Its euro5 million deal settles on June 11 of 2002.

DGZÀDekaBank Deutsche Kommunalbank (DGZ) has put its name to a euro10 billion ($8.66 billion) Euro-CP programme. DGZ has won the arrangership. It is the first German issuer to sign a programme in 2002. The last German issuer to sign was Deutsche Borse, which brought its euro2.5 billion multi-currency CP programme to the market in December 2001. The issuer will change its name from DGZÀDekaBank Deutsche Kommunalbank to DekaBank - Deutsche. The change is due on July 1 2002. The dealers on the facility are the arranger, Barclays Capital, CDC IXIS Capital Markets, Citibank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and UBS Warburg.

Sentiment in the corporate bond markets improved considerably this week on news that the US economic recovery is gathering momentum and a positive speech from Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. High grade issuance picked up in dollars, but remained at a low ebb in euros. US corporates are keen to return to the market, but in Europe only a handful of deals have been added to the pipeline.

HBOS took the market by surprise on Wednesday when it launched a £1.28bn share placement. The bank, formed by the merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland last year, launched the offering on the back of good year end results for 2001 in an attempt to strengthen the company's capital reserves.