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Australia Arrangers ANZ Investment Bank and BA Australia have been joined by Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and the Royal Bank of Scotland in the A$585m project financing for Australian Railway Group.

A collection of eight Austrian Landes-Hypotekenbanks have clubbed together to sign an innovative Euro-MTN programme. The euro5 billion ($4.64 billion) debt issuance programme was signed in the name of Pfandbriefstelle der osterreichischen Landes-Hypothekenbanken (Pfandbriefstelle) via Deutsche Bank. Pfandbriefstelle was founded in 1939 under Nazi law but has lain dormant for most of its life. Hannes Leitgeb, treasurer at Vorarlberger Landes- und Hypothekenbank, one of the eight members of Pfandbriefstelle, was one of the main people responsible for breathing life back into the Pfandbriefstelle structure. Its debut in the international capital markets was a Sfr2 billion ($1.22 billion) Eurobond launched last year. "It took one year to get the shell going after 10 years' of sleep. We were then able to issue the Swiss franc Eurobond. It then took another year to put together the programme," Leitgeb says. Four of the member banks - Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank, Hypo Tirol Bank, Oberosterreichische Landesbank and Vorarlberger - already have Euro-MTN programmes but they hope the added liquidity that will be created by joining together will help them achieve tighter pricing, especially for their public bonds. They will also benefit from Pfandbriefstelle's Aaa rating from Moody's. Vorarlberger is acting as advisor to the programme and Leitgeb is hoping that with his experience of introducing Vorarlberger to the yen MTN market he will be able to do the same for Pfandbriefstelle. He says: "This is not a frequent issuing vehicle for the time being. But if the inaugural goes well we could create a bigger flow for next year." The inaugural, due this week but postponed until later in January, will be between euro500 and euro750 million and will probably have a five-year tenor. After this Leitgeb hopes that it can issue private yen trades. The dealers are BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse First Boston, JP Morgan, UBS Warburg and the arranger, Deutsche Bank. Even excluding financial repackaged programmes, which make up a 20% of Deutsche's signings, the German bank leads the 2000 programme arranger table (see page 18) with 28 mandates compared to Merrill Lynch's (its nearest rival) 14.

Market report

The news of Edson Mitchell's untimely death at the age of 47 has cast a pall over the Euromarkets and the entire banking industry. Do not be under any doubt that Edson was the King of the Euromarkets. He wore that particular crown ever since Hans-Joerg Rudloff was toppled by CSFB insiders in March 1993 and exiled to the Siberia of Credit Suisse HQ. The only pretenders to Mitchell's throne were Connie Voldstad at Merrill, Chris Goekjian at CSFB and Robert Diamond at Barclays Capital. Mitchell was the quintessential $20m a year man who looked the part, loved every minute of life and delivered results time after time when his competitors and imitators could make only shallow promises. Edson's greatest success was in building a world class debt capital markets and equities business for Deutsche Bank from grass roots. When he started to lay the foundations in 1995 we were sceptical about his chances of success - silly us. By his charm and sheer force of personality (an open cheque book from Deutsche also helped the process) Mitchell created in four years what JP Morgan had failed to achieve in 15. It was a stunning accomplishment and marked Mitchell as someone who was simply in a different class from his contemporaries. Look at the recent flabby performance of Goldman Sachs or CSFB in fixed income. How much would they have paid to have Mitchell on their side? If he had auctioned himself with a reserve of $50m per annum for a five year contract there would have been no shortage of bidders.

Banco Comercial Portugues has upped the limit on its $4 billion euro note programme to $6 billion. Bear Stearns has been added to the dealer panel.

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