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PTT, Thailand's largest oil firm, has raised $726m in its forthcoming IPO on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, giving a boost to prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's ambitious plans for a slew of government sell-offs in coming years to help fund the budget deficit and reinvigorate the country's stock market. In total 920m shares were sold at Bt35 each, the top end of the Bt30-Bt35 price range. The transaction secured a total of Bt32.2bn, making the deal the second largest IPO in non-Japan Asia this year.

Singapore Mass Rapid Transport (SMRT) Corp, the majority state owned operator of Singapore's railways, has followed Singapore Airlines to launch its own debut in the bond market. The S$500m two tranche issue had a good response from the domestic investor base, whose appetite was not fully sated by the previous transaction from Singapore Airlines (SIA).

Goldman Sachs won the auction to sell a block of 20m TSMC shares this week, but bankers in Hong Kong suggested that the winning bid may have become a burden for the firm. Goldman beat five other banks on Monday, and bought the deal at $16.05 per American Depository Receipt (ADR). The stock closed at $15.51 on Tuesday trading in New York and $15.80 on Wednesday. Competition to win business related to TSMC stock has been intense in recent years. It became known last week that Taiwan's National Development Fund was thinking about selling the block and sentiment towards the stock was strong over that period.

Australia Radiology and pathology group Sonic Healthcare sold A$170.1m of new shares this week to fund expansion. Sonic was able to cash in on the strong demand for medical technology stocks and the excellent performance of newly-listed Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, which is now trading on Nasdaq and the New Zealand bourse.

Australian non-bank mortgage lender RAMS Home Loans Pty Ltd will price an A$900m domestic securitisation on Tuesday next week, which it believes will prove more efficient than a cross-currency deal. Unusually, RAMS Mortgage Corp (RMC) Series 11 will be lead managed by JP Morgan, with Salomon Smith Barney as co-manager. JP Morgan has always played a leading role in the international market for Australian MBS, but never had a significant presence in the domestic market. The merger with Chase has given it a deeper fixed income franchise in Australia.

ING Barings has structured a $450m synthetic collateralised debt obligation for OUB Asset Management, the subsidiary of Singapore's Overseas Union Bank and Asia's most experienced arbitrage CDO manager. According to Moody's, the deal is the first synthetic arbitrage CDO for an Asian manager.

South Korean credit card company LG Card Co Ltd is preparing to launch a $500m securitisation of its receivables via Credit Suisse First Boston and UBS Warburg. The deal will be the company's first cross-border credit card transaction. Investor interest has already increased the size of the deal from $475m to $500m. Credipia 2001 Ltd will be wrapped by triple-A rated monoline insurance company Financial Security Assurance. The deal will be rated by Moody's and Standard & Poor's.

PCCW-HKT capitalised on rapidly tightening spread levels and unsatisfied Asian investor demand this week to increase its impressive $750m 10 year global bond to $1bn. Once again the subsidiary of Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) used JP Morgan to access the market in low key and rapid fashion, with only 10 hours elapsing between the launch and pricing of the re-opening across the three geographic regions. By re-opening the bond, the Baa1/BBB rated Hong Kong corporate also ensured that the issue is a highly liquid benchmark for the future.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) this week launched its A$250m securitisation for Investa Property Trust, backed by 11 office properties in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide. The trust will offer a single five year soft bullet tranche rated AAA by Standard & Poor's (S&P), but that will be split into A$150m of floaters and A$100m of fixed rate bonds. The deal is set to be priced today (Friday), with a range of 41bp-43bp over the three month bank bills swap rate.

China's largest aluminium producer began its international roadshow in Hong Kong on Monday ahead of an IPO to raise up to $484m. Chalco, China's only alumina refiner and the world's third largest, aims to raise between $348m and $440m from its sale of 2.35bn new shares to fund expansion and renovation of its production facilities. The company's parent, Chinalco, and existing shareholders will raise an additional $44m by selling existing shares.

Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) is preparing to launch a synthetic collateralised debt obligation that will shift the credit risk of a S$2.8bn ($1.52bn) pool of corporate loans from its balance sheet. Arranged by JP Morgan and rated by all three rating agencies, the deal, which will be one of the largest securitisations to come out of Singapore, will use a structure similar to the early synthetic CLO structures used in Europe.

Bankers working in the Dentsu floatation have been amazed by the enormous demand for the issue. Dentsu, Japan's largest advertising agency, on Tuesday set the share price for its forthcoming IPO at ¥420,000 per share, the top end of the ¥380,000-¥420,000 price range. It was not a difficult decision - bankers said the international offer was more than 60 times covered and the domestic institutional placement more than 40 times subscribed.