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Bookrunner Credit Suisse First Boston last Thursday priced the first South Korean primary collateralised bond obligation, or corporate club funding vehicle, to be sold internationally. The $250m deal, Korea Credit Guarantee CBO Ltd, was rated Baa2 by Moody's on the strength of an irrevocable credit facility from the Korea Development Bank (KDB), covering all principal, interest and expenses. The rating will track that of KDB.

Australia Defying the global economic slowdown, Australia has reported GDP growth of 4% for the first three quarters of the year. GDP figures released this week revealed that the economy grew 1.1% in the third quarter, an increase of 2.5% year on year. The result follows news last week that the US economy is officially in recession. The growth is stronger than even the Reserve Bank of Australia had suspected, and the bank recently cut its overnight cash rate to a historic low of 4.25%.

China China's largest bus-shelter advertising firm, Clear Media, set out on its roadshow on Tuesday seeking investors to buy into a heady P/E multiple, based on the enormous growth potential of the company in China and the spectacular growth of its US parent company in the past 15 years.

The novel $500m straight bond-cum-exchangeable issue for Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC), originally conceived under the acronym Opera, has won applause from the global investment community, after being priced close to the tight end of the revised indicated range and inside the initial marketing range. Joint bookrunners Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and UBS Warburg set out on November 29 to sell $500m of straight bonds for KDIC that would, subject to trigger events, later become exchangeable bonds. Despite being the first of its kind in Asia, the deal secured $5.5bn of orders.

KorAm Bank took advantage of domestic Korean demand for dollar debt by launching a $160m 10 year non-call five Kimchi bond on Monday. The upper tier two, subordinated deal was targeted completely at Korean investors, who were hungry to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity between dollars and Korean won. Salomon Smith Barney (SSB) was sole lead manager. The bank had held a mandate for the deal for some time but had been waiting for an opportune time to launch the issue.

Lead manager Nomura capitalised on appetite in Tokyo for well known names yesterday (Thursday) to price the relaunched Nomura Research Institute (NRI) IPO at the top end of the price range. The books for all tranches of the placement were more than 10 times covered. NRI, a research and computer systems integration business controlled ultimately by the Nomura Group, priced its issue of 13.6m shares at ¥11,000 per share. The deal will raise ¥149.6bn, of which ¥22bn ($179m) is for NRI itself through the sale of 2m new shares to international investors. NRI's major shareholders are selling 11.6m shares to the public to raise up to ¥127.6bn, of which 69% is allocated to the domestic market and 3.6m to international investors.

Lead manager Nomura capitalised on appetite in Tokyo for well known names yesterday (Thursday) to price the relaunched Nomura Research Institute (NRI) IPO at the top end of the price range. The books for all tranches of the placement were more than 10 times covered. NRI, a research and computer systems integration business controlled ultimately by the Nomura Group, priced its issue of 13.6m shares at ¥11,000 per share. The deal will raise ¥149.6bn, of which ¥22bn ($179m) is for NRI itself through the sale of 2m new shares to international investors. NRI's major shareholders are selling 11.6m shares to the public to raise up to ¥127.6bn, of which 69% is allocated to the domestic market and 3.6m to international investors.

Orient Corp (Orico), one of the largest consumer credit companies in Japan, this week launched its first securitisation of card loans - a ¥60bn deal sold in euros, dollars and yen lead managed by Mizuho International. Orico is one of the country's most regular users of securitisation and is the leading Japanese ABS issuer in the Euromarkets. Its Oscar programme, backed by auto loans, has been a regular source of funding since 1998.

Rounding off a busy year for UBS Warburg in the Asian markets, the firm sold ¥28bn of convertible bonds and ¥19.3bn of new shares for Orix in an accelerated bookbuild that began on Monday and closed on Wednesday. The deal reinforces the arrival of the accelerated bookbuild in Japan, of which there have been only eight to date. UBS Warburg was sole bookrunner on the two tranche deal, with Daiwa SMBC as joint lead manager. The bank sold ¥25bn of 0% convertible notes at 103 at the highest ever conversion premium to date for a Japanese issuer - 37.9%. There is also a greenshoe of ¥3bn. The notes mature on March 31, 2007. The bonds were quoted at 104.5 after the market close yesterday (Thursday).

After several days of frantic speculation in the market, Pacific Century Cyberworks (PCCW) has made a categorical statement that it will not issue a euro denominated bond through its subsidiary PCCW-HKT before the end of the year. At the end of last week, some bankers suggested that the corporate was eyeing markets to launch a euro deal and was poised to name Barclays Capital and Salomon Smith Barney as potential joint lead managers for a euro issue.

PTT (Petroleum Authority of Thailand) shares surged almost 9% in early trading on their debut yesterday(Thursday), giving an encouraging sign to the government to push forward with privatisation. The stock closed only 2.2% up, however, as sellers took profits.

PT Bank Mandiri became the first pure Indonesian borrower to return to the international debt market since the Asian crisis when it priced a $125m five year floating rate note (FRN) this week. The state owned bank's ability to launch the deal is proof that opportunities exist for the best rated Indonesian names to tap the capital markets. Moody's and Standard & Poor's and Fitch rate Mandiri B3/B-/B-, respectively.