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Australia The A$150m three year acquisition financing for Downer Group, arranged by BA Asia, has been closed. The arranger held A$40m.

Has the dust settled on Barclays Capital where the bank's chief executive, Robert Diamond, carried out a daring smash'n'grab raid on Deutsche last week? Will this go down as one of the greatest victories in history - or as a replay of Napoleon's decision to march on Moscow? Rarely have we heard such rancour and so many divided opinions. Bob Diamond remains one of the most admired leaders in the industry. Here is the man who took over Barclays Capital when it looked like orphan Annie, and turned it into Cinderella all dressed and ready to go to the ball. With Edson Mitchell sadly no longer in contention, Diamond was set to be the new king of the Euromarkets. We were looking forward to the coronation which was due to be held in the Velvet Club in Geneva. If you haven't been to the Velvet Club, you don't know what you are missing, but do remember to take lots of mille Swiss franc notes.

Banco BI Creditanstalt has increased the limit off its Euro-MTN programme from $100 million to $250 million. Banco Interfinanzas, Barclays Capital and West Merchant Bank were dropped as dealers.

Goldman Sachs and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney (SSSB) barely completed a tough Eu425m exchangeable for BCP Finance Bank this week, even though they revised the terms following the first day of marketing. Investors punished the two banks for what they thought was over-aggressive pricing by shunning the deal, which was exchangeable into shares in parent Banco Comercial Português.

Bendigo Bank has dropped three dealers off its $500 million Euro-MTN programme: ABN Amro, HSBC and UBS Warburg have all been axed as dealers. Nomura and Westdeutsche Landesbank have been added to the dealer panel.

Vattenfall Treasury has issued a ¥5 billion ($40.48 million) one-year trade. It pays a final coupon of 0.245%.

Standard and Poor's (S&P) raised the outlook on Vivendi Environnement (VE) from negative to positive last Friday, setting up the utility for its debut euro transaction, due in early to mid-June. The rating agency confirmed VE's rating of BBB+. The utility's parent company, Vivendi Universal (VU), has a BBB rating on negative outlook.

Venantius AB has added Mizuho International as a dealer to its $3 billion Euro-MTN programme.

Volkswagen Financial Services has concluded a one-year euro23 million ($19.9 million) note and a ¥3 billion ($24.45 million) note, both of which are to be issued on May 29. The yen note, which matures on February 27, 2002, pays a single interest payment frequency and has a final coupon of 0.090%. The euro trade pays interest semi-annually.

Volkswagen Financial Services has closed a two-year Norwegian krone trade. The Nkr400 million ($44.14 million) will be issued on June 27 and pays a final coupon of 7.750%. The trade was issued off the euro5 million ($4.39 million) debt issuance programme set up in 1996 via Commerzbank and JP Morgan. This is the first trade in Norwegian krone issued off the programme.

This week was dominated by holidays - Ascension Day in Europe and long weekends ahead in the UK and US - bringing activity to a near standstill yesterday (Thursday). Profit-taking throughout the week drove spreads wider, with telecoms and auto yields worst hit. Ford Motor Credit's debt widened following the decision to replace 13m Firestone tyres at a cost of $3bn. Moody's changed the outlook on its A2 rating from stable to negative and a similar action was taken by Fitch. Ford's dollar and euro issues widened by as much as 10bp on the news.