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Owens Corning's bank debt continued to see-saw this week on pending asbestos legislation. Last Tuesday morning, the paper was quoted in the 71-73 range and then traded up to the 75-77 context. One dealer explained that later in the day the price of the loan had settled somewhat into the 74-76 range after investors believed the market had run up too high. Toward week's end, the market for Owens Corning bank debt slipped again into the 69-71 context after the Senate Judiciary Committee failed to reach an agreement on certain aspects of the bill. "This is some serious money here," said one dealer, explaining why the price for the loan was so volatile in the wake of the negotiations. Market players had anticipated that the Senate Judiciary Committee would have recommended the bill to the full Senate last Thursday.

RBC Capital Markets has snared two pros for its expanding leveraged finance group. Bill Haffner has joined from Morgan Stanley's sponsored coverage group to be a managing director. Haffner, who had spent his entire career at Morgan Stanley, started at RBC last week. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Kelly started two weeks ago with RBC as a managing director, having left J.P. Morgan, where he spent 15 years in its leveraged finance group.

Westfield Trust underlined its reputation as the Australian bond market's favourite property trust when it launched a A$500m three tranche issue yesterday (Thursday).

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALASIA

The Taiwan government raised at least $822m this week with the largest equity offering from non-Japan Asia this year, as it sold 79m American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Macquarie Securitisation Ltd, the Australian mortgage financing programme, this week priced its first new money domestic securitisation of the year via Macquarie Bank and Deutsche Bank.

Morgan Stanley and the China Construction Bank are awaiting Chinese government approval for a joint venture that will buy Rmb4.3bn ($520m) of non-performing loans (NPLs) from the state owned commercial bank.

The huge rally in the share prices of Chinese internet portals Sina.com, Netease and Sohu.com has encouraged the latter two firms to follow the lead set by Sina.com last week and sell long dated convertible bonds in the US market.

The Asian Development Bank has appointed Jin Liqun as the unusually titled "vice president of operations (1)", in place of Myoung-Ho Shin, who is retiring after five years. Jin is responsible for South Asia, the Mekong region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam) and private sector operations.

Hong Kong

PCCW-HKT gained a storming investor reception when it priced a $500m 10 year deal yesterday afternoon (Thursday), just over 18 months after its last deal.