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Lufthansa became the first German corporate for six months to launch a true equity-linked bond last Friday, a Eu250m exchangeable into Spanish travel reservation company Amadeus, issued via UBS Warburg. "The deal is the first for several weeks that has traded up and stayed there," said a banker close to the deal. As of yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, the deal was trading at 101-101.5, after being issued at par.

The Loan Market Association (LMA) has set out a paper detailing guidelines for best practice in certain areas of transferability. The move comes in the light of what the association perceives as the deterioration of transfer clausing in facility agreements.

Merrill Lynch launched an unusual convertible yesterday (Thursday) for Pearl Holdings, a vehicle owned by private equity investor Partners Group. The Eu160m deal carries a wrap from European International Reinsurance Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Swiss Re, which enables it to be rated AAA by Standard & Poor's. Investors' money will be invested by Partners Group into 60-70 private equity funds across the world. "Investors are exposed to the upside of private equity, but have the protection of the reinsurance contract," said a banker who worked on the deal. The convertible is a tap of a Eu485m deal issued last September by DGZ DekaBank.

Abu Dhabi Banks backing the three finalists for Abu Dabi's third independent water and power project, Shuweihat, are waiting for the winner to be announced.

* Veteran structured finance rating analyst Dominic Swan has left Moody's for HSBC, where he will set up and head a structured investment vehicle (SIV) business. SIVs, or bond arbitrage vehicles, are triple-A rated off-balance sheet companies which buy highly rated bonds, especially asset backed securities, and finance themselves by issuing commercial paper and MTNs.

Municipality Finance has revamped its euro2 billion ($1.71 billion) debt issuance programme by dropping Morgan Stanley as arranger and adding Schroder Salomon Smith Barney. Morgan Stanley is also dropped from the dealer panel, as are JP Morgan and UBS Warburg. ABN Amro, Barclays Capital, CDC IXIS Capital Markets, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Merrill Lynch and Nordea are added to the dealer panel.

Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden has concluded a ¥1 billion ($8.11 million) MTN to be issued on July 16. The note pays interest semi-annually and has a final coupon of 1.700%. The issue comes a week after the issuer dropped NIB Capital Bank as a dealer off its euro1 billion ($854.71 million) Euro-MTN programme.

Denmark Danware, the Danish software developer, has priced its IPO 35% below the bottom of its initial range. The company issued 1.46m shares at Dkr200 (Eu26.8) raising Eu39m. The deal was led by Gudme Raaschou.

Nederlandse Waterschapsbank has concluded a £

New South Wales Treasury Corporation has added HSBC as a dealer to its $10 billion multi-currency Euro-MTN programme.

* Dexia Funding Netherlands Guarantor: Dexia Banque SA

Olivetti (previously Tecnost International Finance) has overhauled its euro10 billion ($8.55 billion) Euro-MTN programme. Olivetti SpA and Olivetti Finance have been added as issuers. Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley have been added as dealers.