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Crédit Lyonnais may have started the year slowly but it is putting on a late burst at the end of the first quarter. The French bank completed one deal this week and has two more IPOs set to be priced in the next couple of weeks. This week the bank completed a Eu66m secondary offering for Pierre et Vacances, the French holiday accommodation provider. The sale of 977,500 shares was launched on March 11. The bank then kept the books open for eight working days, closing the deal and pricing it on Wednesday night. The new shares were priced at Eu67.5, a slim 1% discount to the stock's close before the issue was launched. The deal was four times oversubscribed.

Investors are displaying record levels of optimism about the prospects for the European economy, according to a Merrill Lynch survey of 266 fund managers. A net 99% of fund managers expect corporate profits to improve within the next 12 months - but in the short term, appetite for risk remains low.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) focused on the Japanese retail investor base on Monday for an A$880m three year Uridashi bond. The deal was the biggest Australian dollar denominated deal for almost four years and the largest Uridashi bond ever. Nomura was the sole lead manager. The World Bank, taking advantage of the liquidity available, also accessed the market, launching a $400m four year Uridashi and a Eu200m five year Uridashi deal yesterday (Thursday). Both issuers are triple-A rated.

* Union Bank of Norway Rating: A1/A/A+

Prudential financial (Prudential), the US life insurer, has followed up the signing of its $1 billion global CP facility last week with a $1.5 billion Euro-MTN shelf. JPMorgan has scooped the arrangership. It is the first US programme to come to the market this year and is also JPMorgan's first arrangership in 2002. Since the start of 2001, 10 US borrowers have set up MTN programmes and the latest signing was JPMorgan International Derivatives's $1.5 billion Euro-MTN facility that was established in September 2001. Prudential's programme is rated A3 and A- by Moody's and Standard & Poor's respectively. Deutsche Bank is the only dealer appointed to both Prudential's global CP and Euro-MTN programmes and the bank is joined on the Euro-MTN programme dealer panel by the arranger, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, Schroder Salomon Smith Barney and UBS Warburg.

Tariq Rafique, the head of securitisation and asset finance at Nomura in London, continued to develop his structured finance team this week when Christian Marx was appointed head of CDO structuring, Rafique is keen to expand all areas of the firm's securitisation and asset finance business, and sees CDOs as an increasingly important field. "Substantial opportunities are emerging in the European CDO market and what we have seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg," said Rafique. "We have put ourselves in a position to take advantage of such opportunities."

* Banco Español de Crédito SA Rating: Aa1

* Ford Motor Credit Australia Ltd Guarantor: Ford Motor Credit Co

UK consumer packaging company Rexam plc, rated Baa3/BBB, made an impressive debut in the Euromarket on Tuesday with oversubscribed five year euro and seven year sterling offerings via Citigroup/SSSB and HSBC, priced through or at the tight end of guidance. The transaction had been in the pipeline since October last year, but after being put on hold and with the help of 125bp step-up/step-down coupons, it was well timed to tap into healthy corporate and sterling credit markets.

Barclays Capital, IntesaBci, Crédit Agricole, Interbanca, SG, Royal Bank of Scotland and UniCredito have scooped a Eu4bn loan mandate for the Edipower consortium in the bidding war for Italian energy utility Enel's electricity subsidiary, Eurogen. The Edipower consortium comprises Edison Sondel, Atel and the Milan and Turin AEM energy municipalities.

Denmark TDC Mobile International, Orange, Telia Mobile and HI3G - a consortium between Hutchison Whampoa and Swedish venture capital group Investor -have won licences to build out UMTS licences in Denmark.