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It was a busy end to the week last week in yen. Friday saw 36 trades announced, several of which were over ¥2 billion ($16.63 million). Some triple-Bs and lower were getting involved too. Mitsubishi Motors Credit of America, rated Ba3 by Moody's, announced a ¥1.1 billion deal that matures in December this year. Mitsubishi Electric Finance Europe, rated Baa1, did a ¥2.5 billion 6-month note. Its final coupon is 0.1%. And NEC Capital announced a trade for ¥2 billion that goes out to April next year. It also has a final coupon of 0.1%. Svensk Exportkredit announced three trades, two for ¥200 million and one for ¥100 million. They have terms of 25, 26 and 30 years, and all are power reverse dual currency (PRDC) notes with call options. The only other Swedish issuer announcing trades on Friday was Kommuninvest I Sverige. It did a ¥1.1 billion 26-year note that has a final coupon of 7%. Great Belt came to the market with its 13th and 14th notes of the year, and 10th and 11th of the year in yen. Both were done via Mizuho, for ¥1 billion, mature in October 2021 and have PRDC structures. One pays a fixed rate of 4.05% for the first year before turning into the PRDC with US dollar coupons, while the other pays a coupon of 4.2% for the first year and then turns into a PRDC with Australian dollar coupons. Neither has a call option. LVMH - Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesy did a ¥1 billion floating rate note via Tokyo-Mitsubishi International. It does not have a call option and pays a coupon linked to Libor¥ + 45 basis points. CDC IXIS Capital Markets and Credit Lyonnais Finance (Guernsey) were two other French issuers involved. BMW Coordination Centre did its sixth and seventh notes of 2001. They were ¥5 billion private placements with one-year tenors and plain vanilla structures.

Monday was a day for the usual names in the yen sector. The rarest names were Canadian Wheat Board, which announced a ¥1 billion ($8.23 million) 10-year note via Mizuho, and Volvo Treasury, which did a ¥1 billion 6-month trade. The other issuers doing yen business have all been issuing regularly in the market. The top local authorities in the market were announcing deals again. Kommunalbanken did a ¥500 million Bermuda callable power reverse dual currency (PRDC) note. It has an initial coupon of 4% and Daiwa was the bookrunner. And Kommuninvest I Sverige announced a ¥300 million PRDC via Tokyo-Mitsubishi International. It has a coupon of 7.5% for the first five months before turning into the structured form, and is callable semi-annually. CDC IXIS Capital Markets announced a ¥500 million 10-year trade through Mizuho. It also did a ¥1.1 billion note that goes out to October 2016, and BNP Paribas did two ¥100 million trades. One has a term of three months and pays a coupon of 4%, the other has a term of 30 years and pays 2.5%. Earls Seven, the Deutsche Bank-arranged conduit, announced four notes, two for ¥3 billion, with terms of seven and eight years, and two for ¥1 billion that both have terms of three years. Voyager, the only other financial repackaged issuer in the market, did a ¥500 million and a ¥1 billion trade with respective tenors of 10 and three years.

Did you hear the whistle signifying it's game over at Merrill Lynch debt capital markets? Did you see the white smoke billowing out of the Vatican chimney? We very much doubt it because officially nothing has been revealed. But yesterday (Thursday) our crack regiment of special investigative forces sent through an encrypted telegram that, after some Bletchley Park-like deciphering read: "Kim got Martin job. Stop. Merrill managers gutted. Stop. Expect Merrill fixed income CVs in post. Stop." Can this be true? Has Dow Kim, who is Japanese and not Korean as many amateurs had thought, landed the capital markets job? If so, and nothing is for sure in these dangerous times, we congratulate him and wish him the best of luck - he's going to need a truck-load of the stuff. The debt capital markets group at Merrill Lynch should be the best in the world but some unkind bar flies say it has lost some of its touch in recent years. Shame on you sirs! With Dow Kim in charge - he is said by colleagues to be a risk wizard - this could be the time for Salomon and Morgan Stanley to start worrying and looking over their shoulders.

Banca Agricola Mantovana has added MPS Finance as a dealer to its euro1.5 billion ($1.36 billion) Euro-MTN programme.

Bank Austria has raised the ceiling off its Euro-CP and CD programme to euro5 billion ($4.52 billion) from euro4 billion. Citibank, Credit Suisse First Boston and HypoVereinsbank have been added as dealers while UBS Warburg has been dropped from the dealer panel.

Olivetti, the Italian telecoms company, has revealed the banks that will underwrite its Eu4bn rights issue. According to observers, all the banks have committed how much they are prepared to underwrite the issue and Olivetti has been able to underwrite the issue by more than it needed.

Brescia-based Bipop-Carire had its rating cut this week to triple-B from single-A by Standard & Poor's after the bank last Friday announced charges in its asset management division that will depress earnings. Bipop's two and three year bonds widened by 20bp-25bp after the downgrade. A review of the group's business activities will be completed in time for the board's next meeting on November 14.