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Insurer Aegon successfully issued its first securitisation with a Eu931.3m residential mortgage deal bringing fourth quarter Dutch issuance to over Eu3bn. Despite launching at the end of the year and after record issuance the deal was priced tightly with the 3.9 year triple-A senior FRNs paying Euribor plus 27bp.

A financial basket contains a fixed portfolio of financial objects, such as bonds, and shares.

Adelaide Airport is finalising its debut bond issue into the domestic market, which is expected to be Australia's last infrastructure domestic bond issue in 2000. The airport is accessing the market for a much anticipated A$240m 10 year bond issue, which is likely to be priced early next week. The deal, arranged by funding affiliate New Terminal Financing Co, benefits from a credit wrap provided by MBIA Insurance, continuing the trend that has seen many utility and infrastructure companies accessing the market with the aid of credit wraps all year. As a result, the issue has been rated Aaa/AAA, as opposed to the issuer's unwrapped rating of BBB.

Longreach CP Ltd (LCP) is raising A$147.2m through the sale of four tranches of securitised notes related to a sale and leaseback of the Sydney Airport Centre, which is owned and occupied by Qantas Airways. The issue has been squeezed in before year end for the various parties to close off their books. Unlike the recent CDB Infrastructure CMBS related to David Jones' properties, the LCP deal is secured not on the property but essentially on the ability of Qantas to make payments on a lease during the next 10 years and also to maintain the property effectively. Hence three of the four tranches are rated by Standard & Poor's (S&P) at BBB+, the Qantas rating, and one small tranche of A$15m is unrated.

Macquarie Bank yesterday (Thursday) priced the fourth term securitisation of Orix Australia's auto and equipment hire purchase and finance lease contracts. In doing so, the bank sold the first term market asset backed securitisation of the year. Eden Park Trust No 4 is raising A$200m through the sale of three AAA tranches of floating rate amortising notes totalling A$194.8m and one single-A rated tranche of A$5.2m.

The Malaysian authorities have chosen the Christmas period to launch the IPO of Bintulu Port Holdings, Malaysia's second biggest port operator by cargo volume. The deal is targeting at least M$472m in a deal that is designed to fund capacity expansion. State owned Bintulu, owner of the sole port in the eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak, is offering 100m new shares at M$2.00 each. Of these, 60m shares are allocated to an institutional bookbuild that will include international investors, if any are still available to consider the deal between December 18, when the books open, and January 8, 2001, when they close.

China China's fixed line telephone company, China Telecommunications, is targeting between $6bn and $7bn from its listing planned for next year, making it non-Japan Asia's largest ever IPO. The firm plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange and in Hong Kong. It also wants to draw in strategic partners in a deal similar to the template of the PetroChina and Sinopec deals this year.

Perennial RMBS issuer RAMS Home Loans made its second entry of the year into the domestic market this week, launching a deal of A$600m through Salomon Smith Barney. RAMS Series 9 is due to be priced today (Friday). Most of the deal, A$450m, was placed privately to investors following reverse inquiry. The public tranche totalled A$120m and is structured as a soft bullet, rather than an amortising pass through.

Taiwan Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) revised its outlook on Taiwan from stable to negative, while affirming its AA+ long term and A-1+ short term credit ratings for the country.

Just a day after arranging its first fixed rate bond issue for five years, Telekom Malaysia saw the spread on its highly acclaimed $300m 10 year Rule 144a Reg S bond issue widen by 10bp and priced at 262.5bp over Treasuries in New York late last Thursday. The poor secondary market performance of the Baa2/BBB deal, which was joint lead managed by Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch and has a coupon of 8%, prompted some bankers to comment that support for the transaction has been lacking and the quality of the original book was not strong enough.

French state-controlled Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) will sign a euro2 billion ($2.19 billion) Euro-MTN programme. A signing date in April has been set and Paribas has won the arrangership mandate. The borrower, formerly Caisse Francaise de Developpement, is unique in that its notes can carry the guarantee of the French government. Notes issued without the guarantee will still attract investors since the long-term debt of AFD is rated triple-A by Standard & Poor's and Aaa by Moody's. AFD funds economic projects in over 80 locations in developing countries and in overseas French territories. It also acts on behalf of various French ministries. It is seen as a borrower of the same calibre as Caisse d'Amortissement de la Dette sociale (Cades) and Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau which both signed programmes in the last year. The funding target for the first year of the programme is planned to be around the euro1 billion mark. The first issue off the facility is expected to be a euro300 million transaction and will come to market shortly after the programme signs. The borrower is a regular issuer in the euromarket but this programme will be used to tap the private placement market on an opportunistic basis. Patrice Mollie, finance manager at AFD, thinks setting up this facility will simplify issuing procedures for the borrower. He says: "We can get good opportunities for medium-sized issues from the MTN programme. This is important for us because AFD will not be making issues of any great amount. This facility makes issuance more convenient for us." When asked how AFD will differentiate itself from Cades, Mollie says: "We don't have the same liquidity as Cades but we have the rarity value." Paribas Luxembourg is the IPA and the borrower has still to make a final decision on the dealer group.

South Africa EuroWeek hears that Fuji Bank is arranging a $100m facility for Rand Merchant Bank International (Dublin) (RMB International). The borrower is an offshore funding subsidiary of the FirstRand Bank group. The facility is guaranteed by FirstRand Bank Ltd.