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Calpine Corp.'s bank debt last week moved up a couple of points, trading as high as 91-92, after the company announced that restructured agreements with its turbine manufacturers will allow the company to avoid $3.4 billion in future capital expenditure commitments. The restructuring will enable Calpine to deal with its capital expenditure issues, as well as reduce its off-balance sheet commitments, noted one buysider. Following the company's earnings announcement on Thursday, the market for Calpine's paper settled in the 90-91 context.

International Transmission Co.'s $325 million credit was oversubscribed last week and pricing and tranche changes were not being ruled out by lead CIBC World Markets. A banker familiar with the deal would not divulge any planned changes to the deal, which backs Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Trimaran Capital Partners' $610 million all cash buyout of International Transmission from parent DTE Energy. The fully underwritten credit includes a $185 million term loan and a $15 million revolver at the operating company level, with pricing in the LIBOR plus 21/ 2% range. There is also a $125 million loan at the holding company level priced between LIBOR plus 31/ 2-4%. A CIBC official and Trimaran spokeswoman declined to comment, while a KKR official could not be reached by press time.

CommScope has completed a new $100 million revolver amid a tough market for the company's cable product business. The deal was not oversubscribed, said Jerald Leonhardt, executive v.p. and cfo, but he stated that the company did not want more than the $100 million amount. He noted that the company's previous $250 million revolver had been in excess of what CommScope had needed. He said about 20 investors signed onto the last deal, while five signed onto the new credit. "We were very price sensitive," he said, adding that the lead bank, Wachovia Securities, was responsive to the company's interest rate concerns. The deal has a spread of 21/ 2% over LIBOR.

WEEKLY UPDATE

Activity in the Australian ABS market is picking up, with two deals priced in the past week, and another two due shortly. Last Friday Westpac and SG priced the debut issue for Greater Building Society (GBS). GBS originates A$700m of mortgage loans a year in New South Wales.

Two Australian real estate investment trusts, Mirvac Group and Macquarie ProLogis, raised fresh capital this week, bringing to five the number of such deals so far this year. The latest issues from Australia confirm that the Asia Pacific region continues to outperform the European and US markets in terms of new issuance.

Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group (MTFG), Japan's biggest banking group by market capitalisation, has embarked on a global share offer to sell up to ¥412.5bn ($3.45bn) of stock. Most of the transaction will comprise new shares and the entire proceeds will go to MTFG's balance sheet. Excluding issues from government or quasi-privatised companies, the placement is the largest new share offering from Japan to date. It is also the first time in 13 years that any of Japan's largest banks have made a capital increase of new ordinary equity.

While MTFG is on the road to raise as much as ¥412.5bn ($3.45bn), Japan's three other big banking groups are seeking alternative funding sources. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mizuho Holdings are trying to sell preference shares to customers, close shareholders or would-be partners. UFJ late last year hived off ¥1tr of dud loans. SMFG was the first to announce efforts to raise fresh capital. In mid-January, Goldman Sachs announced it was buying ¥150.3bn ($1.27bn) of new convertible preference shares in the bank.

The Republic of the Philippines struggled to become the first Asian sovereign to launch a seven year benchmark in euros when it priced a Eu300m transaction yesterday (Thursday). A combination of investor concerns about possible military action against Iraq and market volatility in Asian bond markets after Korea's A3 rating was assigned a negative outlook by Moody's conspired to push out spreads on the republic's dollar bonds by 15bp this week.

Sinotrans' offer was priced on Monday at HK$2.19 per share - above even the most optimistic expectations of last week. China's latest privatisation and the largest IPO in the world this year raised HK$3.4bn before the virtually automatic greenshoe exercise that will raise another HK$510m.

Hutchison Whampoa this week made a lightning return to the dollar bond market with a $1.5bn 10 year issue executed in 15 hours. But while the speed of execution was breathtaking, rival bankers claimed the bond fell foul of market volatility and that the borrower had to pay up to get it away.

The Government Housing Loan Corp (GHLC), Japan's largest residential mortgage lender, last week launched a ¥150bn domestic securitisation of residential mortgages via bookrunner Goldman Sachs and joint leads Daiwa Securities SMBC and Mizuho Securities. The single bond, rated triple-A by Standard & Poor's and local agency Rating & Investment Information, was priced at 59bp over 0.8% 20/12/2013 JGB. The notes have a legal maturity in February 2038. The bonds were sold to life insurance companies and small banks.