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Australian insurer QBE Group on Wednesday evening sold $150m (A$277m) of long dated convertible bonds in a privately placed add-on tranche to an almost identical $250m offering completed in April. The transaction was the second success for lead manager Merrill Lynch in offering this particular 20 year hybrid structure in Australia. Both issues were launched this year for QBE. The transaction was in the form of the Merrill Lynch manufactured zero coupon notes the bank calls Liquid Yield Option Notes (Lyons).

Undeterred by the Nikkei 225 hitting 19 year lows this week, joint lead managers and joint bookrunners Daiwa SMBC, Morgan Stanley and UBS Warburg are forging ahead with the float of Nippon Steel's software integration subsidiary, NS Solutions. If all goes as planned in the regulatory filings, the deal could raise more than ¥47bn ($400m), making it the largest IPO since March.

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing threw its future in the global semiconductor industry into the spotlight on Monday when the state sponsored Singapore chipmaker announced a $634m deep discount rights issue. Ultimate controlling shareholder Singapore Technologies (under government controlled Temasek Holdings) is taking its 60.5% share of the offer and Merrill Lynch is underwriting the other 39.5%. The bank's senior management will be on tenterhooks until the result of the issue is announced on October 9.

AMP Diversified Property Trust returned to its tried and tested domestic investor base with a A$145m five year transaction on Wednesday, despite specially arranging an innovative structure to appeal to offshore accounts Concerns about domestic investors being saturated with property trust issuance led AMP to also look at offshore accounts. But the deal ended up being placed mostly in local hands and was increased by A$5m as investors rallied to a credit story that they understood.

Arrangers Bank of Taiwan, BNP Paribas, DBS and Standard Chartered have increased the five year term loan for Uni-President Enterprise to NT$6bn from NT$4.3bn after a strong response from the market. Some 17 banks participated. Allocations are being finalised with signing set for September 18.

Mandated arrangers Danske Bank, HSBC and SEB Merchant Banking will sign banks into the $500m five year facility for engineering group Sandvik next week. The deal will not be increased.

ABN Amro and Citigroup/SSB have been mandated to arrange a baht denominated fundraising for Unilever Thai Holdings. The deal will be conducted on a private club basis and few details have been released. Total Access Communications is tapping the market for a Bt4bn six year fundraising through arrangers ABN Amro, Development bank of Singapore and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.