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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.

Merrill Lynch predicted record new issue volumes and the increased use of direct issue structures this year in the European capital securities market, at the Euromoney International Bond Congress today.

The Republic of Tunisia has mandated Merrill Lynch once again to lead manage a ¥30bn-¥40bn probable global Samurai bond. A banker at Merrill Lynch said that the structure had yet to be decided, but that it favoured the innovative structure used last time round, which involved joint listings with the Japanese ministry of finance and the US SEC.

The Arab Republic of Egypt has finally mandated for its minimum $500m five to 10 year inaugural Eurobond, choosing Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, in line with many bankers' expectations. Lead managers said that launch is still a month or two away, because of the paperwork and market testing needed for Egypt as a first time issuer.

Prudence should be the watchword of European high yield investors in 2001, bankers from Merrill Lynch today told delegates at the Euromoney International Bond Congress.