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Australia St George Bank has completed the bookbuild portion of its A$300m sale of convertible perpetual preference shares through sole lead manager Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB). The product, Prymes (preferred resetting yield marketable equity security), counts as tier one capital with the Australia Prudential Regulatory Authority, the local bank regulator. Under the Prymes structure, the dividend can be reset at any time after five years.

Chad Syndication is expected to get underway next month on a $500m loan facility for the $3.5bn Chad Cameroon Pipeline Project.

Hong Kong Co-ordinating arrangers Barclays, BOCI Capital, JP Morgan, HSBC and Mizuho have completed the underwriting for the $4.7bn three tranche refinancing for Cable & Wireless HKT Telephone. The co-ordinators held $545m apiece.

Hong Kong * East Asia Financial Holding

Westdeutsche Landesbank has signed a $10 billion asset-backed CP programme under the name of Paradigm Funding, a conduit guaranteed by the bank. Paradigm Funding's programme is a multi-seller facility. The European asset-backed CP market surged in 2000 with outstandings totalling $90 billion in 2000, a 55% increase on the previous year. There are 48 asset-backed CPs in the European market, according to CPWare, and the bulk of these were signed in the past two years. The total volume of outstanding trades in the market is $217.28 billion. Perry Inglis, director at Standard & Poor's, says: "The market's remarkable increase came largely on the back of arbitrage issuance, which was a big market trend in 2000." Nine asset-backed CP programmes joined the market last year. Siefunds, the conduit guaranteed by Siemens, was the last programme to join the market. It has yet to issue, but Pennine Funding, the conduit arranged by Halifax has $160 million-worth of debt outstanding.

Europe * Cartesio Srl Series 2001-1

Jackson National Life Funding issued A$30 million ($16.71 million) note maturing in 2006. It is the fifth five-year trade the issuer has sold in Aussie dollar this year, giving a combined total of A$630 million issued in the currency. Jackson National Life Funding has also issued four US dollar trades, one euro and a Swiss franc note this year.

Australia Co-ordinator JP Morgan has been joined by Deutsche Bank, HSBC, National Australia Bank and WestLB Australia to launch the A$1.13bn refinancing for Yallourn Energy Pty to underwriters.

The flags are flying at half mast over 1, Canada Square, the forbidding home from home of Morgan Stanley in Europe down in the wastelands of the Dead Canary Wharf. Nervous looking Morgan Stanley types are seen furtively scuttling around dark corners with mobiles pressed to their ears. Some secretaries are seen to be weeping. We ring one of our moles in British Telecom Information and she asks us: "Why do all of these people in Canary Wharf want the number of Heidrich & Struggles?" What is going on? No, there has not been an outbreak of the plague in the Dead Canary. The mourning is for the departure of John Mack, the company's once ferocious president. Mack the Knife has been rolled up in a carpet by the country bumpkins and hillbillies of Dean Witter and posted to Siberia.

Banca Commerciale Italiana has done its first trade of 2001. And the bank chose its domestic currency, Italian lira. The L50 billion ($23.82 million) index-linked trade is the first tranche of what Banca Commerciale Italiance intends to be a series. The deal was self-lead and will pay a single coupon of a minimum of 10% and a maximum of 90% of a revaluation of the index-linked funds. The trade matures in 2006.

The Republic of Turkey is set to kickstart its $7bn 2001 funding programme next week, having mandated ABN Amro and Credit Suisse First Boston yesterday (Thursday) for a Eu500m three year bond issue targeted for launch on Tuesday. It marked the latest in a flurry of mandates handed out by converging EU sovereign issuers this week, as they benefited from an upturn in market sentiment and frenzied bidding from banks.