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TWO of the big three US car companies came to market with jumbo loan securitisations on successive days this week. Merrill Lynch brought a $1.25bn fixed rate deal for Chrysler Corp on Wednesday. "The deal was at least twice oversubscribed and came at the tight end of price talk," said Ashley Kibblewhite of Merrill's London asset backed syndicate desk. "There is very little paper available in the secondary market and a lot of pent up demand for auto bonds. With a flat yield curve it makes sense to buy an amortising note and take the pickup over a bullet."

ABBEY National, one of the UK's largest and best known banks, this week launched its first securitisation in a move which signalled the arrival of mortgage backed securities in the mainstream of Britain's home lending industry. Launched via JP Morgan, the £247.5m deal also marked the Abbey's switch from the buy side to the sell side.

CSFB launched the first CLO backed by project finance loans yesterday (Thursday). The $617m deal through Project Funding Corp 1 will be priced this morning in New York. "The deal has gone extremely well," said a syndicate official at sole manager CSFB in New York. "The triple-A, single-A and triple-B tranches are all oversubscribed and the double-B has gone fairly well. A lot of CLO investors have come into the deal, as well as accounts which buy fixed rate project finance bonds.

FRENCH franc investors had their first chance to buy notes backed by a guaranteed investment contract this week, as Paribas brought the latest deal from SunAmerica's multi-currency MTN programme. SunAmerica Institutional Funding III Ltd issued Ffr1.5bn of notes repackaging a GIC written by SunAmerica National Life Insurance Co (Sanlic), the triple-A rated derivative product company owned by SunAmerica Inc.

* Bank America Robertson Stephens yesterday launched syndication of the first revolving term securitisation in the Mexican peso market. The Ps1bn deal for Elektrafin, the finance subsidiary of discount retail chain Grupo Elektra, is backed by consumer finance loans extended to Elektra's customers. The three year revolving deal is expected to price at 300bp over Cetes and close at the end of March.

The discussion in part one of this Learning Curve (DW, 2/2) has shown that it is possible to obtain a significant terminal de-correlation amongst rates even in the presence of perfect instantaneous correlation.

CHINA APPROVED 18 more companies to add to its 'B' share market this week in a long awaited move to attract more foreign investors and show Beijing's commitment to the market. Many of the companies cleared for listing were supposed to issue shares last year, but were delayed when volatility in the region depressed prices on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges.

CREDIT Suisse First Boston is thought unlikely to have replaced BZW as co-arranger with Morgan StanleyDean Witter and Jardine Fleming in India's $590m GAIL issue despite acquiring the team which originally secured the mandate. Memoranda passed to other

AS FOREIGN investors propelled the Nikkei past the 17,000 level again this week, non-life insurer Mitsui Marine & Fire Insurance's secondary offering felt the impact with its capital raising finishing more than five times oversubscribed. Last month offshore investments on the Nikkei 225 hit a 10-year record as domestic investors sat aside. As a result Mitsui's lead manager, Nomura, chose to place the majority of the triple-A rated company's 60.9m shares offshore.

ING Barings has shut its stockbroking and equities operations in India and Pakistan as part of a decision to reshape its operations in Asia and elsewhere in emerging markets. An ING Barings spokesman said that the bank will pull out of equities and debt trading, global depositary receipts and sales and research operations in India and Pakistan.

TAIWAN LOOKS set to break the new issue inertia in Asia in the coming weeks as issuers attempt to place a number of convertible bonds and other issues. Said one banker: "The attitude in Taiwan is pretty optimistic. The Asian crisis hasn't happened for most of these guys -- they're lining up to say 'give me the money'."

THE REPUBLIC of the Philippines this week became the first southeast Asian sovereign borrower to access the international debt markets in 1998 when it launched $750m of pass through notes via ING Barings. While other sovereigns in the region wait to complete debt negotiations and for a semblance of stability to return to the markets before launching bond issues, the Banco Sentral ng Pilipinas revived a structure it had used successfully in the past to raise three times the amount that it had initially intended.