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Issuance from financial repackaged entities topped $350m this week. Merrill Lynch rivalled Deutsche Bank, the dominant SPV name in the EuroMTN market, by issuing seven trades through its repackaged names. Included in these deals, Merrill Lynch issued three euro trades through its entity, Argon Capital. The largest was a Eu100m trade that matures on July 11, 2004.

Robert Bosch, the German maker of automobile components and consumer goods, signed a Eu1bn multi-currency EuroCP programme on Wednesday and hopes that the facility will give the company added flexibility for future financing. JP Morgan is the arranger and is joined on the dealer panel by Citigroup/SSSB and Deutsche Bank.

Rating: Aa1/AAA (Moody's/Fitch) Amount: Eu250m

Rating: Aaa/AAA (Moody's/Fitch) Amount: Eu166m (fungible with five issues totalling Eu911m first launched 13/03/02)

Chartered Semiconductor's minority shareholders dealt a telling blow this week when it emerged that they had taken only 4% of the company's $1.11bn eight-for-10 deep discount rights issue. While controlling shareholder Singapore Technologies fulfilled its promise of taking 60.5% of the offer, the disastrous take-up by minority shareholders means that Merrill Lynch, which had underwritten the 39.5% minorities issue, has by default become the firm's second largest shareholder.

The mauling that bank shares suffered last week made September 1998, after the crash of Long Term Capital, look like the Teddy Bear's Picnic. You could tell that everyone's nerves were on edge, by the calls that kept coming in. JP Morgan was supposedly teetering on the brink. Credit Suisse was staring into the abyss. Commerzbank had taken a direct hit in its credit derivatives engine room and major banks were about to pull their credit lines on Commerz. Deutsche Bank was about to issue a profits warning. Did we know that Citigroup shares were trading below $30?

The corporate bond market was all but closed this week as secondary spreads widened to record highs and swap spreads ballooned to the widest levels seen for months. Ford paper traded on a cash price only as its spreads versus Treasuries traded out to junk levels and concerns grew that the company could be downgraded. Moody's and Standard & Poor's said that a downgrade to junk was inconsistent with their views. Nevertheless Ford spreads widened 150bp on the week. GMAC was dragged in Ford's wake, trading out by 110bp, while DaimlerChrysler gapped out by 40bp. Among the European car makers, Fiat shares fell to 14 year lows and its bonds widened by around 125bp.