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Sigma Finance Corp (Sigma) has continued a busy week with a euro10 million ($9.79 million) note that matures in February 2011. It pays interest semi-annually. It is the third euro-denominated trade Sigma has issued this year, and takes overall issuance in the currency in 2001 to almost $68 billion. US dollar has been second favourite with $56.5 billion-worth of trades.

SMC Corporation has added ABM Amro as a dealer to its $500 million Euro-MTN programme. The dealer joins a nine-strong dealer panel under the arrangership of Nomura International.

Sol Melia Europe has issued its first trade of the year: a five-year euro340 million ($332.48 million) note that pays a final coupon of 6.25%. The trade was issued at a price of 99.52% and the bookrunner was Deutsche Bank. The note will be issued on February 9 2001, two months after its previous four-month euro206 million note that matures in March 2001.

The bidding war in the Spanish electricity market gained momentum this week when RWE and Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) joined the contest for Hidroeléctricia del Cantabrico, the country's smallest power generator. Three rival bids have been launched for Hidroeléctricia del Cantabrico. The first is from Electricidade de Portugal, which offered Eu2.7bn and is backed by a loan arranged by Citibank/SSSB and Caja Madrid. The second is from Germany's RWE and offers Eu2.9bn for the company, and the third is from Ferroatlantica, backed by Energie Baden-Württemberg, which values the target at Eu25.8 per share.

* Abbey National plc Rating: aa3/A-

Two supranationals have shown an interest in Hong Kong dollar. Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) issued a five-year HK$130 million ($16.7 million) trade that pays a fixed coupon of 5.7%. And Council of Europe Development Bank made a HK$800 million trade that goes out to February 2004. It pays 5.75%. Samu Slotte, senior funding officer at Nordic Investment Bank, is keen to keep an eye on the Hong Kong dollar sector. He says: "We have a budget this year of about euro2.5 billion ($2.32 billion). Although it is hard to say how much of this will come in the form of Hong Kong dollar, we are constantly looking at the area as a good source of funds."

Frenetic business seen in the primary debt markets and the derivatives sector since the year began, calmed this week. Both dealers and customers seemed to be taking a breather after their exertions in the first weeks of 2001. By Thursday (yesterday), the five year dollar swap spread mid-market was about 83bp against the re-opened 5.75% November 2005 Treasury. The 10 year swap had pushed out to 94bp over the new 5% February 2011 Treasury, but this sudden widening of the swap spread is due to the 10bp roll between the old 10 year note and the WI. The actual swap yield at 10 years has remained largely unchanged over the last week -about 6%.

Angola Market sources say Standard Chartered has closed the first level of syndication for a possible $450m deal for Sonangol UEE. The underwriting phase was closed oversubscribed. The possibility of an increase is being discussed. If there is no increase the deal will not go to general syndication.

Air Liquide is due to sign a euro2 billion ($1.86 billion) MTN programme today, February 9 2001. BNP Paribas has scooped the arrangership. Air Liquide last month bought the Austrian activities of Linde for euro135 million. Linde has an existing euro4 billion Euro-MTN programme, which was set up in April 2000. The programme has $1.37 million outstanding off 19 trades and includes four of the dealers appointed to Air Liquide's dealer panel. Air Liquide, which was founded in 1902, specializes in industrial and medical gases and has 125 subsidiaries in 60 countries. The dealers off the programme are ABN Amro, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Natexis Banque Populaires and UBS Warburg. This is the seventh programme BNP Paribas has arranged since the beginning of 2000.

Europe * Preferred Residential Securities 3 plc

Australia CSFB Australia and UBS Warburg are inviting sub-underwriters into a A$640m six year financing for Amatek Industries, a building products company.