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Moody's Investors Service assigned a B3 rating to Tokheim Corporation's reorganized debt obligations, following the company's emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 20, 2000. The rating affects $47,765 million new guaranteed senior secured revolving credit facility with a final maturity of September 2005. The company is based in Fort Wayne, Ind., and manufacturers gas pumps.

A $1 billion bond deal is said to be helping Nextel Communications's bank debt levels by providing liquidity. Several small trades totaling $20 million were reported last week, with levels topping off at 97 before settling at 95 1/2 to 96. Still, Nextel's bank debt is one of the most actively traded names, and dealers cautioned not to entirely rest the levels on the bond deal. "It should be marginally positive in my view and I would expect levels to firm," he noted, "but it's largely a technical at the moment." Calls to the company were referred to investor relations and were not returned.

SK Corp and Citic Pacific launched international bond issues this week to buoyant investor demand. Korea-based SK Corp's $250m senior unsecured Eurobond issue ended up three times oversubscribed and subsequently tightened 15bp in secondary markets.

ANZ Banking Group completed its $1bn global RMBS transaction this week, pricing its jumbo class of triple-A notes at 18bp over three month Libor. Lead managed by Salomon Smith Barney (SSB), the issue achieved the tightest spread among recent Australian global deals for a single amortising tranche. It also came at the tight end of price talk that was 18bp-19bp last week.

It has been a busy week in the Australian equity markets as bankers completed or were due to complete more than A$1bn of new issues. There is also a spate of IPOs on the way, including a possible jumbo offering of Glencore's coal assets in the third quarter. Deutsche Bank and Macquarie Equities combined yesterday evening (Thursday) to complete a $118m convertible bond and A$159m equity issue for rapid growth video gaming machine maker Aristocrat Leisure.

China China's flag carrier, Air China, is considering an overseas stock offer that could be launched in the first half of 2002. The $500m offer could be listed on the Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges.

The Korean government yesterday (Thursday) was forced to clarify misunderstandings about comments from officials that the administration will not rush to privatise assets if market conditions are not favourable. Some observers took this to mean that the planned Korea Telecom $2.5bn American depository receipt (ADR) offering might not proceed as planned in mid-June. "If there are shares left over from various sales, we won't dump them on the market just to meet the June 2002 deadline," said an official, stressing that the ADR issue is still on track. The government owns 58% of Korea Telecom and has repeatedly said that it wants to sell the entire stake by mid-2002.

Melbourne Airport made its debut entrance into the domestic bond market this week to a strong investor reception. The issuer accessed the market with a multi-tranche A$700m bond issue, combining two different tenors and fixed and floating rates to appeal to as wide an investor base as possible for its debut market entry. The multi-tranche transaction, which was launched yesterday (Thursday), was expected to be priced today (Friday).

Lead managers ANZ Investment Bank and Westpac will next week price Australia's largest CMBS transaction to date. The deal has remained largely unchanged in structure since it was announced in February. As a multi- property securitisation it will probably be priced inside the last notable CMBS issue from Aurora Property Trust, which was a single asset deal.

Japan AFLAC launched its second outstanding Samurai bond issue this week, increasing the intended ¥35bn five year deal to ¥40bn after receiving strong investor demand. Goldman Sachs and Nikko Salomon Smith Barney joint lead managed the AAA rated bond issue, which provides a coupon of 0.87% and was priced to yield 35bp over yen Libor.

NIB Capital Bank has issued its 41st yen note of 2001: a ¥1 billion ($8.08 million) that pays 2% semi-annually. Yen accounts for nearly 50% of the issuer's funding volume, bu it hasl also used euro, Swiss franc and Norwegian krone this year.

Spreads on Philips Electronics' seven and 10 year paper widened sharply this week after CFO Jan Hommen warned of an industry-wide slump in the semiconductor market. Speaking at a conference in Barcelona, Hommen said: "Recent semiconductor industry statistics show that the slump is deepening further. Of course, Philips is being impacted by this trend and by the lower demand for products in mobile displays and optical storage where we have very strong market positions."