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France Télécom dominated the international markets this week with its $16.4bn equivalent multi-currency blockbuster - the largest ever corporate bond. The transaction comprised euro, dollar and sterling tranches across a range of maturities from two to 30 years, and attracted some $34bn of orders. Overwhelming demand for the bond drove spreads on all the tranches tighter, most significantly in the long dated dollar and seven year euro tranche which contracted by some 10bp to 12bp.

Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux (Suez Lyonnaise) set up a euro2 billion ($1.86 billion) Euro-MTN programme on Tuesday March 6. The arrangership has been handed to Deutsche Bank. But the borrower has no immediate plans for apublic trade. Jean-Paul Rigaud, group treasurer at Suez Lyonnaise, says: "As yet we have not decided on any funding targets. At this stage we do not have any plans for a public trade. We would rather issue a few smaller trades and publicize our name that way. According to our dealers we should not encounter any problems attracting investors and getting funding. We have seven official dealers on the panel but we will use the facility opportunistically and will encourage reverse enquiry." The programme is the first Euro-MTN shelf to be set up under French law with a 144a option attached. Last year 14 French issuers joined the market and six chose French law to regulate their facilities. It took Deutsche Bank eight months to put the programme together. And some have complained that setting up under French law puts a strain on the origination process as well as putting off some investors. Casino signed its euro2 billion Euro-MTN programme in September 2000 and Regis Taillendier, treasury at Casino, told MTNWeek in February 2001: "The Euro-MTN was historically designed under English law, so there was an extra cost for setting it up under French law. We paid about 10% extra to set up the programme." (see MTNWeek issue 216). But Emmanuelle Bonneau-Petelle, debt capital markets at Deutsche Bank, says: "Suez Lyonnaise chose French law to coincide with its parent company's law. But this does not change anything, especially as it is an investment grade credit. The French law was more comfortable for the local advisors." Suez Lyonnaise is the world's number two water company after Vivendi and was formed in 1997 from the merger between Compagnie de Suez, builder of the Suez canal, and Lyonnaise des Eaux. The dealers off the programme are the arranger, Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Salomon Smith Barney and SG.

With lead managers Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Smith Barney planning an April roadshow for its Eurobond, Gazprom, Russia’s biggest company, continues to face questions over its corporate governance record. London independent trader Simon Cawkwell said on Tuesday he had raised $1m as proceeds towards a possible representative legal action against Gazprom for allegedly breaking an agreement to ringfence the company’s domestically listed shares.

Goldman Sachs has strengthened its high yield research team with the appointment of ING Barings analyst Colin Marshall.

Northern Rock, the mortgage bank that has been one of the UK's most avid securitisers in the last two years, has opted to set up a master trust structure like those used by Bank of Scotland and Abbey National. Schroder Salomon Smith Barney has structured the vehicle and began marketing the first issue this week - a £1.5bn transaction to be sold in the global dollar and sterling markets next week.

Schroder Salomon Smith Barney is about to begin marketing an innovative securitisation of equity release mortgages for UK life and pensions company Norwich Union. The £222.5m deal will be the first securitisation in Europe of the asset class, but is unlikely to be the last - equity release mortgages are a fast growing product in the UK.

RFC Mortgage Services Ltd, the UK subsidiary of GMAC's Residential Funding Corp, will today (Friday) launch a £225m securitisation of its non-conforming mortgages. Lead managed by Bear Stearns, the deal will again be wrapped by triple-A rated monoline insurer Ambac.

RBC Dominion Securities has sold a £40m tap of the secured bond issued by UK housing association The Guinness Trust in 1997. Housing associations are not-for-profit private companies that provide social housing in the UK, and several of them have issued secured bonds to finance their property building and refurbishment programmes.

Coastal Securities, a company based in Houston, Texas which specialises in securitisation, revealed more details this week of the repackaging of US Small Business Administration (SBA) loans it plans to sell in Europe. SBA loans are one of the better established of the smaller asset classes in the US ABS market, but they are little known among European investors.

The pace of change in the UK water sector accelerated this week as Westdeutsche Landesbank made an offer to acquire Mid Kent Holdings plc, owner of a small UK water firm. The bid by WestLB's asset securitisation and principal finance group (ASPF) is the latest move in a spate of corporate finance activity aimed at coping with the disappointing stockmarket and bond spread performance of the privatised UK water utilities.

The Washington Group's bank debt plummeted from par range to the low 60s after the company announced liquidity problems last Friday. A $25 million piece traded of Finova Group's bank debt traded at 81 1/2 to 82 range this week, as the company just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The filing is part of a $6 billion bailout plan from Leucadia National Corp. and Berkshire Hathaway. A piece of United States Office Products' debt at traded 58. Owens Illinois is trading in the high 92, low 93 range.

Christine Cromarty, director, agency asset swap marketing at BMO Nesbitt Burns in New York, and Amy Cohen, senior marketer for corporate and emerging market names at creditex in New York, have taken new positions at Banca Commerciale Italiana. Both are directors, with Cromarty marketing and structuring credit derivatives and Cohen trading and marketing. The positions were added in line with a global increase in the BCI structured credit platform, said Paolo Josca, head of credit derivatives in New York.