Search results for

Hewlett-Packard Co (HP), the number two player in the global computer industry, shrugged off the recent Nasdaq woes to announce a debut offering in euros. The deal will follow the successful inaugural sterling transaction for IBM, the largest computer company in the world, which was completed this week.

* Inter-American Development Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Brasil has concluded a $25 million MTN which is to be issued on June 22. Lehman Brothers acts as the bookrunner on the one-year note. This is the issuer's first ever trade off its $1 billion Euro-MTN programme which was signed in August last year.

Lafarge has been forced to lower the terms of its Eu1.3bn convertible bond, as a result of the French cement group's share price falling throughout the bookbuilding phase. SG and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, who led the deal, launched the issue on Wednesday morning with a fixed conversion price of Eu130. But over the course of the day, Lafarge's share price plummeted. It closed on Wednesday night at Eu98.15, down 3.8% on the day. A banker at a leading competitor said: "When you go out with fixed terms you have to be sure of yourself. The deal could certainly have been done with a range around this price [Eu130]."

Banque et Caisse d'Epargne de l'Etat Luxembourg has concluded a one-year FX-linked note. The coupon will be subject to a fixed US dollar percentage against the new Taiwanese dollar. Banque et Caisse d'Eparge de l'Etat Luxembourg mainly issues in yen - the currency accounts for over 50% of its funding off its $6 billion Euro-MTN programme so far this year. The borrower has issued just over 5% of its Euro-MTN debt in US dollar and the bookrunners of these trades this year are JP Morgan, Salomon Smith Barney, and Lehman Brothers.

Banque PSA Finance has upped the limit off its $4 billion debt issuance programme to $6.5 billion. The facility has $4.4 billion outstanding off 63 trades.

Barclays Capital has named heads of investment banking and debt capital markets for Latin America, in what Bob Griffin, head of investment banking for the Americas, described as a "surgically precise expansion" in the region. The new head of investment banking, Frederico Sacasa, previously headed the Latin American corporate and investment banking operations of Bank of America. He has already joined as managing director and senior executive in Barclays Capital's Miami office.

Bayerische Landesbank has come to the market with two thirty-year yen trades. The largest is a ¥1.5 billion ($12.27 million) note that will be issued on June 28 2001. The note pays a final coupon of 4.10%. Its second note is a smaller ¥500 million trade that pays a final coupon of 6%. The note will be issued on July 11 2001.

DaimlerChrysler has upped the limit off its $20 billion multi-currency Euro-MTN programme to $25 billion.

The role of the banks was high on the agenda at Euromoney's 10th annual Global Borrowers & Investors Forum, held this week in London. One panel touched on the danger of bank disintermediation in the age of the e-bond. But Frank Czichowski, senior vice president at KfW, who spoke on the panel, was skeptical. He says: "To be brutally honest my life has not been made any different by the internet. We started with great hopes but the enormous potential of the net has not been unlocked." Michael Weston, head of debt capital markets Europe at Morgan Stanley, defended the banks' position. He says: "The whole market and indeed the world got ahead of itself. The internet is certainly not going to replace the sales team. I know that issuers want the human touch and do not want coverage from just a terminal." More than half of the participating delegates also agreed in a vote that small infrequent issuers in the market are ignored by the banking world. But the talk unveiled further bad news for banks when 18% of the audience declared that investment bankers were of no use at all to issuers, with 28% feeling that they were of slight use. Bankers were very useful according to 43% and 11% said they were incredibly useful.