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* Bayerische Landesbank Girozentrale Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

Lafarge, one of the world's top roofing and cement suppliers, has finally announced the details of its funding strategy. The French borrower is to sign a euro1.5 billion ($1.61 billion) Euro-MTN programme in the next two months. Deutsche Bank is the arranger, as first reported in MTNWeek, issue 117. Lafarge bought the British building group, Redland, in 1997 which originally had an MTN programme. The new programme is the second part of the group's strategy to help refinance its existing debt through equity and capital markets. Last year Lafarge launched a rights issue and a eurobond. The euro500 million bond was considered a success and has encouraged the borrower to set up a facility capable of continuous issuance. The choice of dealers off the programme hints at a belief that European houses provide the best coverage in Euroland. Jean-Marc Doucet, funding manager at Lafarge, says: "We hope the dealer panel, with five European banks and one American, will provide us with very good distribution in the core European area." The dealer panel contains the arranger, ABN Amro, Banque National de Paris, Paribas, Salomon Smith Barney and Warburg Dillon Read. All the banks have previously worked with Lafarge and Deutsche Bank in particular has lent to the group on a corporate basis. The programme will be operational by the end of May. The fact that Lafarge found Deutsche's reputation for structured products attractive is noteworthy. It is rated A by Standard & Poor's.

Leveraged buy-out specialists are watching anxiously for news of Finelist, which has gone into receivership. Finelist was put into the hands of receivers, with Ernst & Young appointed as administrator, following the discovery of financial irregularities within the company.

The hunting season is well under way. And we are not talking about Dresdner's capture of Henry Nevstad, who started at his new post on Monday. No, this week saw the annual Citibank Credit Structure huntin-shootin-fishin' get-together in snowy Scotland. This is strictly for the big guns of the MTN world. Last year Salomon's Peter Jackson and Morgan Stanley's Olivier Jalouneix proved they were MD marksmen extraordinaire. But apart from Jacko himself there aren't that many MDs left in MTNs. One of the few remaining, Deutsche's Tiina Lee, who we feel certain could kill a stag at 100 paces, was languishing in a spa in Colorado. Frank Ciaravalli from Merrills in New York flew in for the event and Goldman's Andrew Devenport made up the MTN MD quotient. But somehow Morgan Stanley new boy, Richard Tynan, muscled his way in and managed to just miss shooting CCS's Sean Murphy. And as if to prove Matt Carter is not the only person to have worked on the Paribas MTN desk and survived, Paul Cohen, who used to be Daniel Cogoi's sidekick at the French house, has been appointed to Dresdner's syndicate team. And John Muros, who worked alongside Sam Amalou at Daiwa, has moved to TMI.

The Republic of Lebanon has launched a Eu250m tap via Commerzbank Securities of its Eu300m 2004 bond issued last February. The deal, out this week, confirms the country's unusual status as a credit largely immune to market jitters.

Bahrain Mandated arrangers ABC, DG Bank, Gulf International Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi have launched the $80m term loan facility for Bahrain International into general syndication The first round of syndication closed oversubscribed at $87.5m. The arrangers and borrowers will negotiate the final sum after the close of general syndication.

* Alex Krauer, chairman of UBS, is to step down after next year's AGM. Marcel Ospel, currently chief executive is to replace him. Ospel's appointment is subject to the approval of shareholders at the AGM, to be held on April 26.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the oldest bank in the world and largest banking group in central and northern Italy, will sign a euro5 billion ($4.94 billion) debt issuance programme next Friday, February 4. ABN Amro has scooped the arrangership for the facility despite the fact that it has only one other Italian mandate to its name. Flavio Spineda is responsible for the funding department at MPS. He says: "With this programme we are talking about institutional investors both foreign and domestic. This is different to our existing retail buyer network so we've provided a credit rating." Moody's rates MPS' programme A1 as it does several Italian facilities such as that of San Paolo IMI which signed last April. But Spineda, at MPS, is confident investors will be able to differentiate the various banks. He says: "Dealers tell us there is a lot of demand for paper such as ours. We hope to be able to borrow at one or two basis points cheaper than other similar banks. We just have to wait for the most favourable time." MPS, based in Tuscany, is the second Italian to sign this year after 17 joined the market in 1999. It shows that Italian borrowers are still leading the way into Euro-MTNs a year after the introduction of Emu. The issuer is fairly familiar with international debt markets. It tapped the public bond market six times last year and has an existing $5 billion euro depository receipt programme signed in 1991. It also has a $2 billion Euro-CD programme in operation since 1990. The new facility will also allow MPS to issue schuldschein. Joining the issuer and arranger in the dealer group are Credit Suisse First Boston, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney, Warburg Dillon Read and Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale.

Austria CAIB pulled the Eu76m-Eu93m IPO of software company ai informatics on the last day of bookbuilding due to lack of interest from international institutions. Despite good interest from domestic investors, the offer of 4.45m shares at Eu17-Eu21 had to be cancelled on Friday last week.

Estonia Moody's has put the financial strength rating of Hansapank on review for possible downgrade from D+, whilst affirming the bank's Baa/P-2 deposit rating.