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The Italian government's Eu4.65bn securitisation of delinquent social security contributions to INPS successfully made its first large principal payment on January 31. The Eu1.55bn Series 1 tranche was redeemed in full at its expected maturity, without recourse to the reserve fund.

St George Bank is planning to launch a global securitisation of its Australian residential mortgages on February 21 or 22. Lead managed by Credit Suisse First Boston with Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan as co-leads, the $1bn deal will have an unusual five tranche structure.

UK non-conforming mortgage lender Preferred Mortgages plc has returned to the market after a break of more than a year. Lead managed by Barclays Capital, the £125m deal was the first sub-prime issue of the year and sold well at a spread that was generally considered reasonable.

UK supermarket chain J Sainsbury plc is planning an innovative £300m securitisation to finance the outsourcing of its information technology functions. Barclays Capital will bring the transaction at the end of February.

Houston-based Service Corporation International signed commitments with J.P. Morgan Chase to launch a $200 million revolving credit facility last week for the company. Jeffrey Curtis, cfo, said the company is looking to close the single-tranche credit by the end of this month and indications thus far show that pricing is expected at LIBOR plus 3%. He declined to name other banks participating on the loan. "We are shooting for $200 million but we would settle for less or accept more," he said. Curtis declined to elaborate on whether or not he expects the credit to be oversubscribed.

Dealers are reporting $100 million of AT&T's $25 billion credit facility changed hands this week at slightly above 99. Nextel's "D" and "B/C" traded up this week. A small chunk of Emmis Communications' $1.4 billion credit facility traded at par 3/4.

First Union and Merrill Lynch will launch a $800 million senior secured loan for Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. and act as co-leads on a $300 million bond offering for the company. Kelly Roth, treasurer, said the company signed commitments with the banks on Monday and will hold a bank meeting next week. She would not comment on expected pricing on the facility. Roth said pricing will be higher than it's been on the company's past credits as its debt rating is BBB- compared to a previous rating of A-. "We have a long history with First Union and Merrill and selected them based on the proposals that came in," she said.

Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Commerzbank are pitching long DAX volatility trades to proprietary accounts and hedge funds to take advantage of a slump in implied vol to three-year lows. Greg Wolters, v.p.-equity derivatives sales at Credit Suisse First Boston in London, said two to three times the normal volume of DAX vol trades have gone through the over-the-counter market in the last two weeks. Typical positions being entered include vol swaps, straddles, strangles and calendar spreads.

ABN AMRO Bank is considering attempting to smooth its application to issue warrants in Taiwan by appealing to senior Ministry of Finance officials directly, rather than continue waiting for the Securities and Futures Commission and Bureau of Monetary Affairs, the banking regulator, to make a decision. It has already been waiting for nearly six months and is the first foreign bank to have applied, said an ABN official. The SFC and the Bureau both report to the Ministry of Finance. Officials at the SFC and Bureau of Monetary Affairs declined comment. English-speaking officials at the Ministry of Finance could not be found by press time.

Online credit derivatives trading platform creditex plans to offer asset swap trading, loan trading and a database of credit default swap spreads in the second quarter. Andrea Danese, coo in London, said creditex has now set up offices globally, and sees expanding its product range as the next step in growing the platform into a full credit platform. Access to the asset swap and loan market is essential for credit derivatives traders, who use these markets to hedge and price trades, according to Danese. Although the same is true of the bond market, it is already crowded with online platforms, he added. Only a handful of platforms exist for asset swaps and loan trading.

As a general matter parties to privately negotiated derivative transactions