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Globals * European Investment Bank

Walt Disney Co launched and priced a blowout $1.75bn global bond in just six hours yesterday (Thursday), taking advantage of a continued flight to quality as the US corporate bond market takes time to recover from the after-effects of the Enron debacle. The deal was swamped with around $9bn of orders according to one investor, enabling lead managers Citigroup/SSB and JP Morgan to increase two tranche issue from $1.35bn to $1.75bn and price the 10 and 30 year tranches inside price talk.

Venture Production, the UK-based oil and gas company, is looking to brave the equity markets in the next few weeks with a £25m IPO. According to Bruce Dingwall, Venture's chief executive, the company is planning to take advantage of the positive environment surrounding its industry to secure future financing. Founded in 1997, Venture was created to eliminate the exploration risk associated with many oil developments by targeting stranded assets. The company buys these up at low costs and develops them.

Austria Mandated lead arranger RZB launched syndication of the Eu127m eight year loan for Voest-Alpine this week.

Bruce Wasserstein has persuaded his former Wasserstein Perella colleague Charles Ward to join Lazard as president. Ward's newly created role will be mainly concerned with Lazard operations and management. He will have less contact with clients than the deputy chairmen, Marcus Agius, Gerardo Braggiotti, Kenneth Jacob, Georges Ralli and Jeffrey Rosen. He will not have a fixed base, but will move between offices as clients demand.

Global bonds for the Republic of Italy ($2bn), the EIB ($3bn) and Fannie Mae ($6bn) dominated the dollar sector this week. Both the Italian and EIB transactions are to be priced today (Friday) and have benefited from the developing trend among investors to diversify away from US agency debt. Italy has provided the dollar market with its first non-agency benchmark in the 10 year sector, while the EIB is targeting the more widely sought-after five year maturity.

Xstrata yesterday (Thursday) provided a much needed boost to the equity capital markets when it announced a £650m equity offering to finance the $2.5bn acquisition of coal assets from Glencore, the Swiss mineral resources trader. The deal will be the first big-ticket marketed offering in Europe this year, and is a coup for JP Morgan, which is financial adviser to Xstrata, global co-ordinator and bookrunner for the equity offering, and a lead arranger and bookrunner on a $2bn loan facility.

Xstrata yesterday (Thursday) provided a much needed boost to the equity capital markets when it announced a £650m equity offering to finance the $2.5bn acquisition of coal assets from Glencore, the Swiss mineral resources trader. The deal will be the first big-ticket marketed offering in Europe this year, and is a coup for JP Morgan, which is financial adviser to Xstrata, global co-ordinator and bookrunner for the equity offering, and a lead arranger and bookrunner on a $2bn loan facility.

Svensk Exportkredit announced its biggest yen note of 2002 on Friday. The ¥9.05 billion ($68.22 million) trade goes out to February 2007 and has an initial fixed coupon of 3.5%. Morgan Stanley was championing the eighteen-month floating rate note again, leading a ¥1.5 billion deal with that structure for Dapo Bank. It pays the 3m ¥Libor flat rate. Morgan Stanley also led a ¥1.5 billion zero-coupon deal for Unibail. It also has a tenor of 18 months. Credit Lyonnais Finance (Guernsey) announced four deals all around the ¥50 million mark. They all go out to June this year. Kommunalbanken went for two ¥500 million trades that go out to March 2022 and March 2032. KBC Financial Products did its fifth yen note of the year. It was a ¥98.8 million three-month deal.

* Japan Finance Corp for Municipal Enterprises Guarantor: Japan

On the day that MTNWare recorded its 100,000th trade, the yen market announced 30. Triple-As were the mainstay of the sector as usual, with World Bank doing the day's two biggest deals. The ¥5 billion ($37.69 million) and ¥3 billion notes both go out to March 2032. Kommunalbanken announced a ¥1 billion note and a ¥600 million note. Both have tenors of 30 years and were done with Kokusai as bookrunner. Kokusai also led a trade for Kommuninvest I Sverige. The ¥100 million trade goes out to March 2022 and after an initial coupon of 3.5% for a year, is linked to the US dollar-yen exchange rate. It is callable annually. Nederlandse Waterschapsbank went for a ¥1 billion 15-year deal via Salomon Smith Barney and a ¥1 billon 30-year note via Mizuho. And while Rabobank Nederland also used Mizuho to place a ¥1 billion 20-year deal, several other issuers, including Banque PSA Finance, CDC IXIS Capital markets, KfW International Finance and Toyota Motor Finance Netherlands, used Salomon Smith Barney to get their paper placed. Compagnie de Financement Foncier announced its first yen deal of the year with a ¥1 billion 20-year trade.

Thursday's yen trades were dominated by German issuers, including some rare deals from a couple of corporates. Volkswagen announced a ¥2 billion 18-month trade and Volvo Treasury did a ¥1.5 billion 18-month note via Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley led a handful of ¥1.5 billion 18-month trades in fact, including deals for Linde Finance and Renault Credit International Banque. If past issuance is anything to go by these notes have floating rate coupons linked to the 3m ¥Libor rate. Stadtsparkasse Koln also went for a floater with Dekabank as dealer. The coupon is linked to the 3m ¥Libor flat rate, and is floored at 0.01%. And KfW International Finance and Kommunalbanken went for their usual clutch of power reverse dual currency notes. The three deals from KfW and the two from Kommunalbanken all have terms of 30 years. Barclays Bank did four deals in yen, taking its tally in the currency this year up to five. One was a ¥1 billion one-year note, the others varied between ¥62.63 million and ¥140 million and between one month and a year in tenor.