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* Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank AG Rating: Aaa/AAA

Pfandbrief Bank International (PBI) offers a strange excuse for the delay in signing its euro1 billion ($936.4 million) Euro-CP programme. Martin Schulte, PBI's head of treasury, says: "It's quite simple really. The CP facility had to take a step back because PBI has shown such dynamic growth in the last year." But Schulte goes on to explain that maintaining a balance sheet of euro3 billion with just 10 people meant priorities had to be assigned to other projects. The Euro-CP programme was due to be launched alongside the euro7.5 billion Euro-MTN programme in August 2000 (see MTNWeek, issue 184). But it got pushed to the background when the Euro-MTN facility started issuing, especially when it found investors hungry for a euro750 million public lettres de gage issue. The new facility is the issuer's first venture into the CP market and Schulte is confident that with an A-1 rating from Standard & Poor's, it will be a success. He says: "It is not so important to get our issuance level up to the euro1 billion ceiling. More crucial is that investors learn to accept our paper as quickly as they did with the MTN. With a little bit of homework we should do our first trades by the end of next week." The programme can issue in any currency and all the notes will be unsecured. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter is the arranger. The dealers are the arranger and the issuer, Barclays Capital, Citibank, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and HypoVereinsbank. This is the third Euro-CP arrangership that Morgan Stanley DW has scooped since it came back into the market exactly a year ago. The two other signings are Tesco and Erste Bank.

Pfizer has added Deutsche Bank as a dealer to its $3 billion Euro-CP shelf. The facility has $1.66 billion outstanding off 38 trades. Although Bob Fauteux, corporate media relations at the issuer, was unwilling to comment on details, he says: "We have updated the programme to come in line with the amendments to the FASB rule 133."

Pfandbriefstelle, the triple-A rated Austrian agency, is planning to make its debut in the yen sector. The issuer, which is a collection of eight Austrian Landes-Hypotekenbanks, signed its euro5 billion ($4.64 billion) Euro-MTN programme at the very end of last year. It launched its debut Eurobond (denominated in euros) earlier this month. It hopes to issue its first yen trade by the end of the week via Nomura and UBS Warburg. It is expected to be a ¥50 billion 10-year deal. Hannes Leitgeb, treasurer at Vorarlberger Landes- und Hypothekenbank and advisor to Pfandbriefstelle says: "¥50 billion is the minimum amount you need to do to make the trade liquid."

The Republic of Poland stunned the international bond markets this week by wrapping up its year’s borrowing needs in a robust and punchily priced Eu750m 10 year offering through Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch — the biggest single tranche issue yet from an EU convergence play.

The Province of Buenos Aires took advantage of the lack of Argentine sovereign issuance at the short end of the yield curve to launch a Eu200m three year deal this week at a tighter spread than its recent two year offering. The transaction, led by Caboto and BNP Paribas, was priced at 99.57, or 613bp over the Bobl, compared with an original 627bp spread on the Eu200m two year euro that Caboto and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein priced on January 9, and to which they added another Eu100m on January 24.

The Republic of Poland stunned the international bond markets this week by wrapping up its year’s borrowing needs in a robust and punchily priced Eu750m 10 year offering through Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch — the biggest single tranche issue yet from an EU convergence play.

* European Investment Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA

Province of Ontario has rewarded a clutch of Canadian banks that have consistently sold trades for the issuer. CIBC World Markets, Royal Bank of Canada and TD Securities have been appointed to the province's dealer panel after lead managing six of the eight trades that the issuer has sold since January 1999. Tokyo-Mitsubishi International, which has not done any trades for the province in this period, has also been added as a dealer to the C$8 billion ($5.34 billion) facility, signed in 1992.

According to plan, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by 50bp at the FOMC meeting this week. This was the least that the market had expected, but the steady procession of deflationary data released over the last few days kept the rally alive. Another 50bp cut is now confidently expected at the next FOMC meeting, if not before. Swap spreads narrowed sharply as the market rallied. Moreover, the five year versus 10 year spread relationship disinverted to a positive relationship once again. At the close yesterday (Thursday) the 10 year mid-market was at 82bp while the five year was 81bp.

Deutsche Bank has given more details of its intended restructuring, as Vorstand spokesman Rolf-E Breuer announced healthy results for financial year 2000 at a press conference yesterday (Thursday). The proposed changes, which will involve the loss of 2,600 jobs worldwide, will see the bank's operations divided into two groups - the corporate and investment bank (CIB), which will be headed by Joe Ackermann and Carl von Boehm-Bezing; and the private clients and asset management group, headed by Breuer. Services provided to all units of Deutsche Bank will be combined as DB Services, while industrial holdings managed by DB Investor are being combined with private equity and venture capital activities in a corporate investments group, which Breuer will head.

Turkey has made a cautious first approach back to the international bond markets with a Eu500m three year offering through ABN Amro and CSFB. The deal is the first since the liquidity crisis in its banking sector caused spreads to skyrocket last November. The transaction had a coupon of 8.25%, and was sold at an issue/reoffer price of 99.50, producing a spread of 390bp over the equivalent maturity Bobl 130.