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Merrill Lynch and Commerzbank yesterday morning (Thursday) took advantage of improving market sentiment as they completed a Eu316.5m accelerated bookbuild of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, the world's leading printing machine manufacturer. The 5.275m shares were priced aggressively at Eu60. This gave no discount to the closing bid price of Heidelberger the day before. The issue, according to a banker close to the deal, was covered in two hours. The stock at the close of trading yesterday was up to Eu61.

UK food retailer Safeway reported positive full year results this week to continue its turnaround after an extremely difficult 2000. While sales growth was sustained at 5.2%, operating margins were up from 4.1% to 4.9% in 2000, and operating profits before exceptionals rose by 25% to £395m. A debt reduction of 9% helped Safeway cut net debt-to-Ebitda to 1.9 times from 2.4 times, while Ebitda interest cover climbed from 7 times to 7.5 times.

Mandated arrangers Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Industrial Bank of Japan have launched the Eu470m and $165m seven year loan backing Sasol's Eu1.3bn acquisition of Condea. The deal, which is fully underwritten by the mandated lead arrangers, consists of two term loans of Eu320m and $165m, a Eu126m revolver and a Eu24m LOC facility.

Denmark Bayerische Landesbank has launched the Eu50m five year term loan for Roskilde Bank to general syndication.

* SNS bank Nederland NV Rating: A2/A/A+

SNS Bank Nederland has issued a HK$100 million ($12.82 million) two-year trade via SG. The trade is plain vanilla, linked to floating euribor and it pays a final coupon of 4.92%.

The Republic of South Africa is set to make a second big stride towards its target of $1bn of funds for the fiscal year, by mandating Nomura and Daiwa for a probable ¥30bn ($243m) six year Samurai bond. South Africa has only issued twice before on the Samurai market; a ¥30bn five year bond in 1995, and a ¥40bn seven year in 1997, via Daiwa. This time Daiwa has teamed up with Nomura, to the exclusion of the two US houses also shortlisted for the bond - JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch.

SNS Bank has done a syndicated SlKr1 billion ($20.26 million) trade that pays 8%. HypoVereinsbank was the lead manager, and Bank Austria was the senior co-lead manager. The note matures in June 2006. It is SNS Bank's first Slovak koruna trade of the year, and although euro accounts for 38 of its 48 deals in 2001, it has also issued in Hong Kong dollar, Czech koruna and Swiss franc, among others.

Israel's state owned electricity monopoly, the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), has completed a blowout $600m 10 year Eurobond, handled by Salomon Smith Barney as sole bookrunner, proving that Israeli credit has not suffered from months of violence in the country. The final book was just short of $2bn on a bond that was roadshowed as a mere $300m affair. Deutsche Bank was a joint lead on the deal, but did not receive any bonds to distribute. Pricing, at 255bp over Treasuries, was inside pre-launch talk of 263bp.

* Bank Austria AG Guarantor: deficiency guarantee from City of Vienna

* Alliance & Leicester plc Rating: A1/A+/AA-

* Europäische Hypothekenbank SA Rating: Aaa/AAA