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RBS Financial Markets and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney this week began marketing the £2.026bn bond issue that will finance the sale of Welsh Water, the UK utility, to an equity-less company that will run the business in the interests of customers. The transaction will repay bridge debt that the leads have extended to Western Power Distribution (WPD), a consortium of US electricity companies that bought Welsh Water last year.

Den norske Bank has concluded a HK$70 million ($8.97 million) note to be issued on April 10. The note pays interest annually and has a final coupon of 6.00%. The trade is the issuer's 10th of the year and its fourth in Hong Kong dollar. Den norske Bank's other issues in 2001 have been denominated in dollar, euro and sterling.

Croatia DG Bank has closed the Eu30m three year term loan for Splitska Banka. The deal was 100% oversubscribed and the borrower is considering an increase.

Northern Rock has closed a five-year $12.16 million Euro-MTN to be issued on April 6. The note pays interest quarterly and has a final coupon of 3mLibor+2. The bookrunner is HSBC. This is Northern Rock's ninth trade so far in 2001 - seven of which have been denominated in dollar. The issuer has also issued trades in euro and sterling this year. Russell Brown, capital markets manager at Northern Rock, explained the choice of dollar: "We are really quite happy to look at other currencies apart from dollar. We set sterling targets, so other currencies are definitely considered. But it just so happened this year that good opportunities have come up in dollar."

Electricidade de Portugal (EDP) has become the first Portuguese issuer to join the Euro-CP market this year. The euro1 billion ($901.24 million) programme was signed on Tuesday April 3 via Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (MSDW). It will help EDP reach investors that it has not been able to access so far through its euro5 billion Euro-MTN programme, which was signed in October 1999. It follows several European utilities that joined the CP market in the last few months of 2000. Magda Vakil, finance manager at EDP, expects issuers rated the same as EDP at A-1+/P-1, to be the main competition. But she does not expect to be rushing into the market. She says: "We frequently use domestic CP for our daily funding and we thought it was important to sign a Euro-CP programme for the extra flexibility. Although we want to be present in the market we have no funding requirements at the moment and so we won't be using it just yet." EDP is on CreditWatch negative from Standard & Poor's, pending its tender offer for Hidroelectrica del Cantabrico (Hidrocantabrico), Spain's fourth largest electricity company. But it will have to fight off the challenge from Germany's RWE first, which is one of several other companies trying to buy Hidrocantabrico. MSDW also arranged EDP's MTN programme. Vakil said the bank's involvement in the MTN facility was a big help in its choice of an arranger for the CP programme. It is MSDW's second CP arrangership this year. Vakil also questioned the need for same-day settlement, which many dealers believe is fundamental for an efficient and liquid market. She says: "At present the concept of same-day settlement and overnight trading is not important for us." The dealers off the programme are the arranger, Barclays Capital, Citibank, Deutsche Bank and UBS Warburg.

European Investment Bank (EIB) has increased the debt ceiling off its Euro-MTN shelf, making it the second-highest debt limit in the market excluding programmes with unlimited debt limits. The ceiling was raised from euro30 billion ($27.05 billion) to euro50 billion. An official from EIB's funding department says: "We would have been getting fairly close to the upper limit of the facility. We have found it to be a very efficient tool for documenting issuance." The official adds: "We don't expect a great increase in volume of issuance over the coming year - it will be business as usual. We are studying the possibility of using the programme more for the issuance of sterling." EIB signed the shelf in 1996 and the original debt ceiling was $5 billion. The official explains: "At first the programme was just for private MTN placements and we used to issue our benchmark trades as standalones. But now we've really started using it for everything." EIB joins Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten, the only other issuer with a euro50 billion debt limit off its Euro-MTN facility. Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg, KfW and Morgan Stanley Capital have $50 billion limits on their Euro-MTN programmes. Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are the arrangers.

Brazil * Banco BBA Creditanstalt (Nassau)

JP Morgan and Barclays have underwritten what could be the final bid for Spain's smallest power generator, Hidroelectrica del Cantabrico. The two have guaranteed a Eu3bn bid from Ferroatlántica, backed by Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW), for 25% of the Spanish utility.

Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson issued its fifth note of the year, a $15 million trade that goes out to March 2006. The issuance this year marks a return to the markets for Ericsson, after a break of over 15 months where it issued nothing. This year it has issued two notes in euro, two in Swedish krona and this last in dollar.

Merrill Lynch managed to complete this week the biggest ever placing of banking stock in Norway, Den norske Bank's (DnB) Nkr4.3bn (Eu536m) secondary offer, with the minimum of fuss and excellent results. Investors were drawn to a company that is seen as a good defensive stock in a country that is likely to prosper while oil prices stay high.

Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Ericsson) are to issue two Swedish kronor Euro-MTNs on April 9. Both notes are for Skr500 million ($47.89 million) and have a maturity of two years. One note pays interest annually and has a final coupon of 4.80%. The second note pays interest quarterly. The two notes are Ericsson's third and fourth issues of the year respectively. The issuer's two previous notes this year were issued in euro.