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The State of Hessen (Hessen) has signed a euro3 billion ($2.63 billion) debt issuance programme. Deutsche Bank is the arranger and is joined on the 12-strong dealer panel by ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Goldman Sachs, Helaba, HSBC, HypoVereinsbank, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Schroder Salomon Smith Barney and UBS Warburg. The programme signing comes at a time when an increasing number of German issuers are beginning to shy away from their traditional source of funding - the domestic schuldscheine market. Hessen started moving away from the market as early as 1997, but still tapped the market occasionally. Hans-Joachim Soll, head of funding at Hessen, comments: "Schuldscheine was one of our biggest markets in the past but now it is dead for us." As Hessen moved away from schuldscheine, it largely funded itself through benchmark bonds. But on its own this process was unsatisfactory to the borrower. Soll explains: "The programme was signed to give us more flexibility in our funding. We would normally only do one large benchmark bond each year but we have never really had the need to do two large deals. This debt programme will allow us to make many smaller deals over the whole year. It will also open us up to more markets and a wider investor base." The first trade off the programme has yet to be finalized but Hessen is in discussion with its dealers and will roadshow in March. Soll says: "Depending on the offerings we receive, we expect to issue between euro500 and euro700 million off the programme in its first year." Just two other German states have Euro-MTN programmes. The Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt signed its euro6 billion shelf in 1998 and Land Schleswig-Holstein entered the market in 1999 with a euro3 billion debt issuance programme.

HSBC is to surrender the banking licence of its UK-based investment bank and transfer ownership of the business to HSBC Bank plc. The decision highlights the growing importance to investment banks of balance sheet muscle and the rising value of cross-selling services, both strong reasons for the move.

* DePfa Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG Rating: Aa3/AA-

HypoVereinsbank (HVB) had its A+ long-term counterparty credit and senior unsecured debt ratings cut to A by Standard & Poor's (S&P) yesterday, February 21. The German bank has over $18 billion outstanding off its euro50 million ($43.49 million) Euro-MTN facility. In 2002 it has issued just five notes totalling approximately $135 million-worth of debt. HVB's five subsidiaries have also had their ratings lowered. Bank Austria and HVB Real Estate Bank have been lowered from A+ to A and WestHyp, WurttHyp and Pfandbrief Bank International have been lowered from A to A- by S&P.

International Business Machines (IBM) became the first borrower of the year to successfully access the Samurai market this week. The US corporate overcame negative sentiment towards offshore borrowers to launch a ¥26bn three year transaction. Nomura and Daiwa SMBC were joint bookrunners, with Credit Suisse First Boston, Merrill Lynch, Mizuho Securities, Nikko Salomon Smith Barney and Tokyo Mitsubishi Securities as co-managers.

Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, a New York-based research provider, has been named in a study by a Swedish environmental research authority as one of the leading providers of socially responsible investment (SRI) research. Innovest, which has over $900m under direct sub-advisory mandates and launched a new fund this week with ABF Capital Management, was awarded the accolade by MISTRA, the foundation for strategic environmental research.

Jessops, the UK photograph developer, is in talks with a number of banks about the possibility of floating, nearly 18 months after it first tried. John Crabtree, the finance director of Jessops, told EuroWeek that chairman Tim Brookes was talking to advisers about the financing options open to the business. He played down speculation that Goldman Sachs was about to be awarded a mandate. "We are in conversation with Goldman Sachs, as with other banks, but we have not signed anything," he said.

Invensys this week quashed speculation that it was planning a rights issue with the announcement of a far reaching restructuring plan. The stock fell nearly 20% after the UK-based engineering company said that it planned to make £2.3bn of disposals and raise a further £350m in debt.

The Kazakh government dismayed some sections of the market on Wednesday by incorporating state owned oil company Kazakhoil into a new integrated oil and gas company, KazMunaiGaz (KMG), only a week after Kazakhoil issued its debut Eu125m five year bond via ABN Amro. The new company also incorporates TransNeftGaz (TNG), the holding company for oil and gas pipeline companies KazTransOil (KTO) and KazTransGaz (KTG).

The plan hatched by Islandsbanki's Ingvar Ragnarsson and Bill Symington to keep the market away from their brennivin on Wednesday night failed miserably. The threat of shark meat and ram's testicles at the Thorrablot party was not enough to deter the hardy MTNers, with more turning up than ever before, including Deutsche's ex-head of desk Tiina Lee and Dresdner's Jon Saunders. UBS Warburg's Paul Jones felt obliged to eat the pickled shark as Bjarni Armannsson, Islandsbanki's CEO, was handing it round. But Gavin Eddy, UBS's head of desk, was not to be seen. He was recovering from going on a survival course on Salisbury Plain. HSBC's Anne-Marie Ganatra was showing new boy Mark the ropes, and CSFB's Simon Hill was showing off his matching tie and cuff links. Fergus Kiely from HSBC and Brian McCarthy from Lehman Brothers have much better reasons to turn to the bottle. They are both getting married this year. Rob Nankivell from JPMorgan is taking a six-month sabbatical and will be surfing around Europe. Rachel King has stepped down from ABN Amro's MTN desk to find a comfier seat elsewhere in the bank. And Garrath Fulford, having left JPMorgan last summer, has been hired by an unidentified bank.

Oman The market has given a strong reception to the syndication of the $1.364bn loan refinancing for Oman LNG LLC. The deal is already oversubscribed and a number of banks are still outstanding. The deal's arrangers expect a large oversubscription when the books are finally closed, probably next week.