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Hutchison Whampoa raised $2.5bn this week with another cannily timed exchangeable, on the day that France Télécom announced some of its estimated Eu10bn offering of Orange will use the same instrument. KPN Mobile and BT Wireless, which will also tap the equity markets this year, are widely tipped to use exchangeables as well for at least some of their funding. Hutchison's deal was praised for pre-empting this trend among telecoms users. "This is the route the big telecommunications issues will go this year," said the head of one equity syndicate desk in Europe. Another predicted a flurry of combined equity and equity linked offerings. "You will see a real explosion of dual tranche offerings," he said.

Queensland Treasury Corporation has updated its multicurrency Euro-CP programme and has raised the debt limit from $1.5 billion to $3 billion. Citibank has replaced UBS Warburg as arranger off the facility.

Rabobank Nederland has issued two callable US dollar trades, one for $20 million and one for $10 million. The trades were done by reverse enquiry via Merrill Lynch. The issue date is January 22 and they both mature in January 2006, although Johan Karlen, liability manager at Rabobank Nederland's treasury, says that the trades cannot be called in the first year. Both pay interest semi-annually and the larger note has a final coupon of 7.3%, while the $10 million note pays a final coupon of 7%.

Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich has announced its first trade of 2001. The euro100 million ($94.53 million) trade is to be issued on February 21. It pays a final coupon of 5.250% and matures in 2008. The issuer, which signed its euro2 billion Euro-MTN programme in 1999, has so far issued only in euro. It is the sixth Austrian borrower to access the market this year. Vorarlberger Landes- und Hypothekenbank, the Republic of Austria, Bank Austria, Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank and Kommunalkredit Austria have already issued in 2001.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has kicked off its 2001 funding by returning to the three-year dollar FRN sector for the first time since October 2000. It has issued a $5.5 million range accrual note at 3m Libor - 4 bps, which matures January 19 2004. The bookrunner was JP Morgan. Most of RBS' funding is in sterling. Since the beginning of 2000 it has raised $1.24 billion off its Euro-MTN programme - 58% of which was in sterling and 6% ($78.26 million) of which was in dollar.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and UBS Warburg have each arranged a secured note programme via an SPV. RBC's facility is a $10 billion shelf signed under the name Silver Maple. The issuer off UBS Warburg's euro15 billion ($14.05 billion) programme is called TREES. There are no named dealers on either programme.

Severn Trent signed a Euro-CP programme for euro750 million ($708.97 million) on December 20 last year. Deutsche Bank was the arranger and it joins Barclays Capital and Citibank International in the dealer panel. This is in addition to the euro2.5 billion Euro-MTN programme, see MTNWeek issue 212. Tom Jack, group treasurer at Severn Trent, says: "We'd like to use the programme as flexibly as we possibly can and to build up a steady issuance. We anticipate a base level of debt raised of £

Finland JP Morgan is close to closing the Eu200m term loan for Finnish Chemicals Oy.

There were five six-year dollar trades in the market today, all for less than $25 million. Northern Rock Building Society's $10 million plain vanilla FRN was managed by Rabobank and the coupon is dollar libor-linked. Antony Swalwell is senior manager of capital markets at Northern Rock, which also has a US MTN programme. He says: "You rarely get discreet blocks of this size in the US market and with this maturity it is cost effective to issue off our Euro-MTN programme. We are always looking to fund opportunistically." Union Bank of Norway, Bank of Scotland Treasury Services, Westland/Utrecht Hypotheekbank and Den norske Bank also issued dollar FRNs with a six-year tenor.

SNS Bank Nederland accessed euro today with a euro10 million ($9.45 million) structured trade via Credit Lyonnais. The one-year note pays a quarterly coupon of 3m Euribor+100 bps multiplied by a formula dependent on how many days of each three month period the Euribor rate is above 4.09%. The issuer will swap the trade into plain vanilla Euribor. Last year over 64% of the borrower's funding was in euro, but Roger Schumann, senior dealer at SNS Bank Nederland, says they are keen to access other currencies too. He says: "We will swap most trades back to euro, except for maybe some US dollar deals, but other currencies are always available to us. Last week for instance we did a Czech koruna trade."

* European Investment Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA