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Kookmin Bank, South Korea's largest lender, is planning to raise $250m through a two and three year syndicated loan, according to bankers pitching for the deal. The bank signed its latest syndicated loan in April this year, raising $250m in a one and two year deal. The eight mandated arrangers on that deal were Barclays Capital, Calyon, DBS, Dresdner Bank, HSBC, ING, Mizuho Corporate Bank and Wachovia Bank.

The Australian IPO of Global Ethanol Holdings will finish next week with a two day bookbuild and pricing on August 10. Investors will in effect be paying a multiple of the per gallon US dollar price for ethanol in 2008, when most of the company's production will be online.

First Permanent Financial Services, a subsidiary of Australian home builder Devine, is preparing a A$216.3m ($165m) securitisation of residential mortgages. The portfolio includes mortgages with loan to value ratios of up to 106%.

This week's news that Fitch had upgraded the Indian sovereign passed almost without a ripple in the markets. Well, it was only Fitch. But the agency's decision was music to the ears of the region's smarter investors.

Barclays Capital has joined the Bt12.5bn equivalent five year facility for Advanced Info Service, the mobile telecommunications company, as a mandated lead arranger. Citigroup won the mandate last month with a sole bid. The AIS deal was immediately criticised by rival bankers, who said that Citigroup had won the mandate for a Japanese yen-denominated loan with a bid of less than 30bp over yen Libor. It is unclear whether Barclays approached Citigroup, or was invited in alongside other banks, but the bank's early participation proves that there is appetite for the deal and this is likely to encourage other lenders to join the deal.

In May, Thai Military Bank blazed a trail for its country ahead of the implementation of Basel II in 2008 with the first Thai hybrid bond to be sold internationally. Adam Harper talks to TMB's chief financial officer, Tanate Phutrakul, about the international markets, mergers and politics.

Rating: unrated

Deutsche Bank has hired Sreenivasan Iyer from Merrill Lynch to become its head of debt capital markets and corporate coverage group for southeast Asia, based in Singapore — a newly-created position.

Hong Kong

South Korea's Posco provided yet more evidence of robust conditions in the Asian high grade market this week with a $300m 10 year Reg S bond issue led by ABN Amro, HSBC and UBS. Despite the absence of many senior staff at institutional investment firms in August and aggressive price guidance, Posco was able to attract some $750m of orders and bring the deal at a scant premium to Korean quasi-sovereign issuers.

Rating: A2/A-/A-

Philippines property developer Megaworld has finally completed its $100m five year bond issue. Bookrunner UBS was able to pull together enough demand on Friday (July 28) to allow the unrated company to price its deal at 98.488 with a coupon of 7.875% to yield 8.25%.