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The US Federal Reserve lifted spirits early this week when it cut interest rates by 25bp, but hopes of further easing fell afterwards when comments released by the FOMC and economic data suggested an end to the current cycle. But although the global market dollar market was limited to a $9bn two part Benchmark Note financing by Fannie Mae this week, which was healthily oversubscribed, bankers expect a wall of issuance to hit the market after Labor Day.

* Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen Girozentrale Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

UPC, the struggling Dutch cable company, will save itself $200m if it goes ahead with the planned flotation of Priority Telecom, its business telecoms unit. UPC bought Cignal Global Telecommunications last year in exchange for 16% of Priority Telecom, and as part of the deal UPC said it would float Priority before October 1. If not, then UPC agreed it would pay the former Cignal shareholders $200m in UPC shares or cash.

Deutsche Bank has won the mandate to lead the Eu400m rights issue for Suedzucker, the German sugar producer. The shares will be offered at a fixed price to all shareholders at a ratio of 9:2 or 5:1. The sale represents 20% of Suedzucker's Eu2.5bn market capitalisation. At a shareholder meeting yesterday (Thursday), Suedzucker confirmed that it would offer the shares at a 20% discount on the market price excluding the dividend.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein has won the sole mandate to arrange a Eu1.6bn loan to support the Eu2.63bn acquisition of Italy's Elettrogen by an Endesa-led consortium. The loan is the latest in an impressive line of jumbo facilities to come out of Italy over the summer months. It is also an impressive amount for just one bank to underwrite and shows how keen DrKW is to develop its name in the European debt markets.

Hungary Mandated arrangers Bank Austria and Royal Bank of Scotland have signed banks into the Eu70m five year revolving credit facility for Bank Austria Hungary.

Essent, the Dutch utility, signed a euro2 billion ($1.83 billion) debt issuance programme on Tuesday, August 21, and has already issued the first trade off the facility. ABN Amro was the arranger. UBS Warburg lead-managed the debut deal. The programme was due to be signed in March this year (see MTNWeek, issue 222), but Rene Santegoeds, treasurer at Essent, says: "There was a delay because of internal discretions, in particular which of the two named issuers should do the issuing." The inaugural trade is said to be a ¥55 billion ($465.52 million) private placement. Santegoeds says: "I don't want to comment on the inaugural trade. There are some political issues that I can't mention." Now that trading has started, Santegoeds expects most trades to be vanilla euro deals. The maturities will be decided later, depending on Essent's other commitments. The dealers for the facility are the arranger, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and UBS Warburg.

* Abbey National Treasury Services plc Guarantor: Abbey National plc