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Domestic issuance: * Zürcher Kantonalbank

Strategists at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter will place themselves under scrutiny at the Euromoney International Bond Congress this morning at their “How to outperform European credit indices — 2001 update” workshop. Jim Durrant, managing director, head of fixed income research Europe, will revisit a model outlined by the bank at last year’s conference to see just how well the recommended strategy fared.

* Roadshows for the Eu180m IPO of Acegas, Trieste's multi-utility company, kicked off on Monday. Institutional books for the first Italian IPO of the year are closing today (Friday). Retail investors, expected to buy 40% of the deal, will be offered shares from February 19 to February 21. The stock will list on February 28. Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Interbanca are leading the deal.

The Republic of Italy this week provided the global dollar market with a much needed liquid 10 year non-agency benchmark, launching a $2bn transaction at record pricing versus agency debt and achieving diversification of its investor base into the US. The deal was led jointly by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and UBS Warburg. The last sovereign 10 year global was launched in 1998, when Canada issued a $2.5bn bond, and there are only two other liquid non-agency bonds in the long end, the IADB 7.375% January 2010 and the World Bank 7.125% June 2010 issues.

Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg has issued a ¥1 billion ($8.67 million) note. The trade was issued under the $50 billion debt instrument programme and pays a final coupon of 3.65%. The interest will be paid semi-annually.

Last night the market said goodbye to a friendly face... Rupert Lewis, we'll miss you and your Evil Kineval ways. He got a good send off last night in Blackfriars. But while the beer was flowing on Ludgate Hill, another dealer was rubbing shoulders with the biggest chin in football... Jimmy Hill was drawing the raffle at the money markets dinner dance held at Grosvenor House, which was organized for charity by the lovely Louise Mason, of CSFB CP desk fame. And yesterday Louise, Citibank's Colin Withers, Lehman's Scott Hindmarch and the rest of the CP fraternity abandoned their desks to pick up a few free toys at the IFR CP conference. Most were kept entertained not by the discussion panels, but by the vast array of corporate golf tees, slinkys and yo-yos on offer. Some dealers were dismayed when lunch turned out to be a stand-up buffet. It meant they had to juggle the freebies with the cheese and crackers. Lehman's Anton Douglas has only just warmed his seat on the MTN desk and he is off again, to syndicate at CSFB. But the show goes on and the chirpy Cristoph von Mallinckrodt has replaced him.

The Region of Lazio this week raised Eu500m with an innovative securitisation of payments it expects to receive from the Italian government to clear a healthcare spending deficit left over from the mid-1990s. The deal is a general obligation of the region and was sold as Lazio risk in a structured form. However, under the complex accounting rules followed by Italian regions, Lazio will be able to treat the debt as off balance sheet.

A change in Swiss law will lead to the IPOs of two regional banks on the Swiss Exchange in the first half of this year. The respective cantons of St Galler Kantonalbank and Luzerner Kantonalbank are selling part of their stakes in the banks following a relaxation in the regulations governing their holdings. Luzerner Kantonalbank will look to raise Sfr150m (Eu98m) when it issues 1m shares on March 12. This represents about 30% of the bank.

Lehman Brothers has been added as an arranger off Abbey National Treasury Services' $4 billion Euro-CP programme. And Citibank and CSFB have been added as dealers. The following dealers have been dropped: Credit Lyonnais and Daiwa SBCM Europe.

Lithuania has made an impressive and widely lauded return to the market with a limited and tightly priced Eu200m issue via lead managers Credit Suisse First Boston and ABN Amro. The 2008 bond offered a 6.625% coupon and was priced to give a 215bp spread over Bunds - 10bp through the interpolated Lithuanian sovereign yield curve. Since then, the bond has tightened further, and was seen at 185bp over bid mid-week.

The Euromoney International Bond Congress closed yesterday (Wednesday) with a panel discussion on secondary market liquidity, with some of the market’s largest borrowers offering differing views on how it could be best achieved.

Two participants in the loan market have launched a new initiative to encourage increased depth, transparency and efficiency in the secondary loan market.