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Australia Radiology and pathology group Sonic Healthcare sold A$170.1m of new shares this week to fund expansion. Sonic was able to cash in on the strong demand for medical technology stocks and the excellent performance of newly-listed Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, which is now trading on Nasdaq and the New Zealand bourse.

Australian non-bank mortgage lender RAMS Home Loans Pty Ltd will price an A$900m domestic securitisation on Tuesday next week, which it believes will prove more efficient than a cross-currency deal. Unusually, RAMS Mortgage Corp (RMC) Series 11 will be lead managed by JP Morgan, with Salomon Smith Barney as co-manager. JP Morgan has always played a leading role in the international market for Australian MBS, but never had a significant presence in the domestic market. The merger with Chase has given it a deeper fixed income franchise in Australia.

ING Barings has structured a $450m synthetic collateralised debt obligation for OUB Asset Management, the subsidiary of Singapore's Overseas Union Bank and Asia's most experienced arbitrage CDO manager. According to Moody's, the deal is the first synthetic arbitrage CDO for an Asian manager.

South Korean credit card company LG Card Co Ltd is preparing to launch a $500m securitisation of its receivables via Credit Suisse First Boston and UBS Warburg. The deal will be the company's first cross-border credit card transaction. Investor interest has already increased the size of the deal from $475m to $500m. Credipia 2001 Ltd will be wrapped by triple-A rated monoline insurance company Financial Security Assurance. The deal will be rated by Moody's and Standard & Poor's.

PCCW-HKT capitalised on rapidly tightening spread levels and unsatisfied Asian investor demand this week to increase its impressive $750m 10 year global bond to $1bn. Once again the subsidiary of Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) used JP Morgan to access the market in low key and rapid fashion, with only 10 hours elapsing between the launch and pricing of the re-opening across the three geographic regions. By re-opening the bond, the Baa1/BBB rated Hong Kong corporate also ensured that the issue is a highly liquid benchmark for the future.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) this week launched its A$250m securitisation for Investa Property Trust, backed by 11 office properties in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide. The trust will offer a single five year soft bullet tranche rated AAA by Standard & Poor's (S&P), but that will be split into A$150m of floaters and A$100m of fixed rate bonds. The deal is set to be priced today (Friday), with a range of 41bp-43bp over the three month bank bills swap rate.

China's largest aluminium producer began its international roadshow in Hong Kong on Monday ahead of an IPO to raise up to $484m. Chalco, China's only alumina refiner and the world's third largest, aims to raise between $348m and $440m from its sale of 2.35bn new shares to fund expansion and renovation of its production facilities. The company's parent, Chinalco, and existing shareholders will raise an additional $44m by selling existing shares.

Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) is preparing to launch a synthetic collateralised debt obligation that will shift the credit risk of a S$2.8bn ($1.52bn) pool of corporate loans from its balance sheet. Arranged by JP Morgan and rated by all three rating agencies, the deal, which will be one of the largest securitisations to come out of Singapore, will use a structure similar to the early synthetic CLO structures used in Europe.

Bankers working in the Dentsu floatation have been amazed by the enormous demand for the issue. Dentsu, Japan's largest advertising agency, on Tuesday set the share price for its forthcoming IPO at ¥420,000 per share, the top end of the ¥380,000-¥420,000 price range. It was not a difficult decision - bankers said the international offer was more than 60 times covered and the domestic institutional placement more than 40 times subscribed.

Hong Kong The $100m floating rate note (FRN) issue for PT Bank Mandiri continued to gain momentum this week, said bankers at HSBC. The transaction, which will be the first time an Indonesian state owned body has issued since the financial crisis, is seeing good interest from private bank accounts, said officials. "The deal is coming along well, we are seeing some interest from Singapore and European accounts as well as domestic Indonesian investors," said an HSBC staffer. "Many private banks are in the process of getting credit approvals in place, which takes a little longer than usual as it is B3 rated and effectively a new credit."

BHP Billiton, the natural resources company, has opened up the Australian market for future issuers by exceeding expectations with a huge two tranche transaction. Launched this week, BHP's issue is the largest unwrapped corporate deal ever seen in the domestic Australian market. At A$1bn, the deal is only surmounted by a A$2.7bn credit wrapped issue from Australian utility ETSA last year, and the tenor of seven years on this new issue has helped dispel the myth that liquidity in the domestic market dries up beyond short maturities.

Private banks dominated issuance in US dollar. They accounted for 11 of the 18 trades closed. But other interesting issuers were present too. World Bank closed a $15 million three-year note that pays a final coupon of 3.5%. And private corporate financial Sigma and gic-backed borrower Monumental Global Funding did a $53.10 million three-year note and a $50 million five-year note respectively. At the long end Hamburgishe LB Finance (Guernsey) traded a 10-year lightly structured deal via Mizuho. The $10 million note pays a floating rate for the first 18 months, until June 5 2003, which is linked to 3m US$Libor+170 bp. After this date the note pays interest fixed at the rate of 6.6%. There is a call option on June 5 2003 and also on December 5 2003 and the trade will be callable annually thereafter. This is the second $10 million 10-year trade Hamburgische has issued in the past week. Also at the long end is Landsvirkjun. The Icelandic issuer traded a $50 million 10-year note due to be settled on December 20. It pays a final coupon of 4.8%.