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Sweden Over 15 banks have been brought into Ericsson's $743.676m multi-tranche facility and EuroWeek understands that some $900m has been raised from the market.

Two major deals are set to add to the rapid growth of the Russian domestic corporate bond market. Slavneft has completed an auction arranged by Troika Dialog for its second bond, a Rb2bn two year issue with a six month put at 99.23 and a one year put at par. The auction produced a 19.85% first semi-annual coupon, while subsequent coupon payments are linked to the Russian government bond market.

Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo (SNPC) this week signed up a group of banks to arrange a $300m prepayment facility, the first loan from the Republic of Congo. It is also the first African corporate loan to hit the market in 2002 outside South Africa. Mandated joint arrangers of the deal are KBC, RMB (SA) and Standard Chartered Bank. The facility is also fully underwritten by the three arrangers.

* Britannia Building Society Rating: A2/A

Sun Hung Kai Properties (Capital Market) has updated its $2 billion debt instrument programme and has added Bank of China to the dealer panel. The update signing was completed on March 8 and Bank of China joins the existing 12-strong dealer panel. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China is already a named dealer.

Nordic conglomerate Group 4 Falck this week announced its proposed acquisition of the second largest security services company in the US, Wackenhut. UBS Warburg has been chosen to arrange and sole underwrite a $1.335bn bridge loan and lead a Eu380m equity issue to finance the $573m acquisition.

* Akademiska Hus AB Rating: AA

The Region of Tuscany has finally signed its euro1.5 billion ($1.31 billion) Euro-MTN programme. Most of the details on the programme were published in MTNWeek last month (see issue 268), but the dealer panel had yet to be chosen. The borrower has now decided that the three arrangers - Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and UBS Warburg - will be joined as dealers by ABN Amro, Banca IMI, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, BNP Paribas, CDC IXIS Capital Markets, Depfa Bank Europe, Dexia Capital Markets, HSBC, JPMorgan, MPS Finance and Nomura International.

* Royal Bank of Scotland plc Rating: Aa2/A+

US dollar has been the currency of choice for double-A issuers. Royal Bank of Scotland has issued several US dollar notes recently. It announced two callable range accrual notes via JPMorgan for amounts of $5 million and $5.09 million. The first is an 18-month note that pays a fixed coupon of 4% whenever $Libor is between 0% and 4.25%. The second note pays a coupon of 4.5% when $Libor is between 0%and 5% and goes out two years. Both notes are callable quarterly. The issuer also did a $5 million three-year straight FRN via Mitsubishi Trust and a $350 million FRN via UBS Warburg. The trade pay 3m $Libor +40 basis points up until the call, which is at five years, and then it pays 3m $Libor +90 basis points. And Aa1-rated Hamburgische LB Finance announced a $5 million five-year note led by Deutsche Bank. And Lehman Brothers led a $100 million two-year FRN for Aa2-rated Westland/Utrecht Hypotheekbank. Triple-A borrowers did well too. Rabobank Nederland did a $10 million fixed rate note via BNP Paribas. It goes out three years and there is a call after six months. The issuer also did two range accruals: a $20 million four-year note via Nomura and a $10 million four-and-a-half-year note via Morgan Stanley. And KfW International Finance did a $10 million five-year note via Mizuho and the dealer also led a $10 million five-year note for Export Development Canada. And K2 Corporation did a $25 million one-year note.

UK directories business Yell has appointed Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to lead an IPO, just nine months after British Telecom sold the group. The sale of Yell, which some analysts have valued at as much as £4bn, will lock in an impressive profit for venture capitalists Apax Partners and Hicks Muse, which paid £2.1bn for the business.

* CDC IXIS and SG will price a Eu738m club funding CDO for Iccrea Banca on Monday, backed by 117 bonds issued by Italian co-operative banks. Price talk is 23bp over Euribor for the single tranche, rated triple-A by Moody's and Standard & Poor's with a 5.7 year average life. Expected and legal maturities are December 2007 and 2009. Four junior notes, totalling Eu151.6m, will be retained by Iccrea Banca.