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BHP Billiton, the Anglo-Australian mining group, is finally close to spinning off its BHP Steel business, which will have a market capitalisation of A$2.1bn-A$2.6bn when it lists separately in July. ABN Amro and Credit Suisse First Boston are handling the deal. The long awaited move, which was flagged in March 2001, will be the largest stock market listing in Australia for two years and will place BHP Steel in the list of the country's top 60 listed companies.

Australia Amcor shares surged to an eight year high last Friday (May 10) when trading resumed after the institutional part of a A$1.4bn new capital raising was completed. The deal is to help Amcor pay for the acquisition of parts of German firm Schmalbach-Lubeca.

The Czech Export Bank (CEB) has provided the only Czech sovereign exposure available in the Euromarkets, with a $350m seven year fixed rate bond via Morgan Stanley (books) and Ceska Sporitelna. The deal should be priced today (Friday) at a Treasury spread of 115bp-120bp, with distribution expected to be dominated by banks, plus a smattering of convergence and other funds.

Australia AGL has launched a A$300m 7% October 2007 transaction via ABN Amro and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). The energy investment and development company's deal was priced at 100.08 to provide a re-offer yield of 6.98% and a spread of 68bp over swaps. The initial pricing guidance was 65bp-68bp.

Premarketing began this week for the forthcoming initial public offerings of Maxis and PLUS, which market watchers hope will propel Malaysia to the forefront of emerging economy capital markets. Ananda Krishnan-controlled Maxis is due to set out on its roadshow on May 27, and the PLUS (Projek Lebuhraya Utara Selatan) IPO is set to be roadshowed 11 days afterwards. The two transactions combined could raise close to $1.6bn from the local and international markets.

Guarantor: Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale Rating: Aa1/AA+/AAA

South Korean finance company Samsung Capital Co launched its $296m auto loans securitisation this week to a blowout reception from investors spying the advent of a new market. Now that triple-A rated monoline insurers - in this case Financial Security Assurance (FSA) - will guarantee international securitisations of Korean domestic assets, the country's fast-growing consumer finance companies have the opportunity, as well as the motive, to sell ABS to overseas investors. The flow of deals is therefore expected to accelerate.

In a spate of rare high grade activity, GE Capital Australia Funding was the first of three new issues in the Singapore market this week. Allstate Funding and Freddie Mac quickly followed the subsidiary of the US electric capital company, providing domestic investors with a choice of senior offshore names. GE Capital Australia Funding's new S$300m two tranche deal offered investors an opportunity to benefit from the volatility surrounding GE's bonds in the wake of Enron's collapse. The Aaa/AAA rated corporate was forced to bring the issue to market at much wider levels than it would have liked. Citigroup/SSB said the pricing of the issue was in line with the widening of its bond spreads globally.

Lead manager Goldman Sachs on Wednesday priced a $700m convertible for Cathay Financial Holdings on terms that many competitors and investors said were more of a victory for the issuer than for Goldman Sachs and investors. Nevertheless, it is the largest CB by far from Taiwan and sets a new benchmark, at least in size.

Guarantor: Abbey National plc Rating: Aa2/AA

ABB this week overcame challenging market conditions and investor concerns about its restructuring plans and asbestos litigation to launch a $750m equivalent bond in euros and sterling, but reduced the size from the planned $1bn equivalent and paid an extra 20bp in spread. The deal, led by Barclays, Citigroup/SSSB and Credit Suisse First Boston, was reduced from planned Eu1bn and £300m tranches to Eu500m and £200m deals respectively - the euro maturing in January 2008 and the sterling in May 2009. Both tranches paid 470bp over mid-swaps and gave investors hefty coupons, 9.5% in euros and 10% in sterling.