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The Taiwanese government plans to issue up to 10% of the shares it holds in state owned Chunghwa Telecom next month through a domestic offering to institutions that officials hope will revitalise efforts to privatise the company. However, it seems that the government still wants to move too fast in the state sell down.

Asian countries must continue to stress the development and transparency of their capital and regulatory markets to increase foreign direct investment and capital market activity. This was the conclusion of a panel of speakers at an institutional investor roundtable meeting at the Asian Development Bank conference in Honolulu this week. Speakers were cautiously optimistic that there has been financial progress since the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Advances included most countries' floating exchange rates and rapidly reducing overall public debt, which makes another economic crisis of that severity less likely.

The Asian domestic bond markets need the continued development of government bond benchmarks, transparency and political will to encourage corporate bond markets, according to a conference panel at the Asian Development Bank conference. The panelists agreed that the corporate markets play an important role in future credit diversification to help prevent the over-exposure to bank loans and maturity mismatches that led to the Asian financial crisis of 1997. However, many of the domestic markets have so far seen limited liquidity and intermediary participation.

ANZ Banking Group will soon become the last of Australia's four largest banks to use the global MBS market. The group is expected to launch a $1bn plus issue within days, through lead manager Salomon Smith Barney. The market is waiting to see if ANZ will opt for the single jumbo amortising senior tranche structure favoured by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and National Australia Bank, or choose the multi-tranche option that St George Bank and more recently Interstar favoured, possibly incorporating soft bullet notes.

China SG Securities on Wednesday completed its first deal of note since Patrick Crammond joined several months ago to head the equity capital market team.

With the new government of the Philippines celebrating 100 days in power, representatives of the executive laid out their plans for improved financial development to the Asian Development Bank this week. Included in these proposals was a potential return to the international debt capital markets this year, said Alberto Romulo, secretary of finance. "Our main objectives are to... look to the omnibus energy reform bills and the banking reform programme," said Romulo. "But after this we are looking at international market conditions, and are planning to initiate an investor roadshow in either July or August," he said.

Deutsche Bank is on the verge of launching the first convertible bond issue for Powerchip Semiconductor. The $200m plus deal will take place as an accelerated global bookbuild and will probably have a five year maturity with rolling puts beginning at the end of year one. The issue will be launched in Hong Kong today (Friday), and will be roadshowed in the US on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then in London on Thursday for pricing at the end of next week. Indicated pricing will be released early today.

Dollar denominated agency paper was showing a strong bid against Treasuries this morning (Tuesday).

Arena Leisure, the racecourse owner and media group, will look to raise £85m (Eu137m) on the equity markets through an open offer. The roadshows for the issue kicked off on Wednesday and will run until May 22. Books for the open offer to shareholders will remain open until May 30, when the deal will be priced. Deutsche Bank, which is leading the issue, will then be able to place any remaining shares with those who came in to the deal during bookbuilding.

ingapore * Development Bank of Singapore Ltd

Europe * Phoenix Funding Plc

Who shot Connor Killeen, the greatest living Irish folk hero since Peter O'Toole, Stout Murphy and Molly Malone? The co-head of equities at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein had almost become part of the furniture but to give him full credit, he had helped to build a very decent equities business at the bank which was a regular contender for the middleweight title and on a good day and with the crowd cheering, could punch well above its slender appearance. Killeen was one of the better residents of the old UBS stable which was mainly filled with no-hopers and chancers. For Kleinwort Benson, then going nowhere but sideways, he was a brilliant hire. The equity capital markets area, especially in IPOs, is not a user-friendly business and the best training ground would be in an amphitheatre facing the equivalents of Russell Crowe