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Fuji Photo Film Finance has concluded a five-year capped floater Bermudan callable, to be issued on December 21. The ¥1 billion ($9.03 million) note is the issuer's seventh yen trade of 2000. It has also done four US dollar notes off its $1 billion Euro-MTN programme. The trade matures December 21 2005, making it the longest-dated note it has issued this year. It pays a final coupon of 1.2% on a semi-annual basis. Marcel Sehuurmans, treasury officer at Fuji Photo Film Finance, also confirmed that the bookrunner off the note is Tokyo-Mitsubishi International.

Gemplus International priced its Eu495m IPO late last night, after lowering the bookbuilding range and reducing the deal size of an issue originally billed to raise Eu654m-Eu744m. The company reduced the range from Eu7.25-Eu8.25 to Eu5.75-Eu6.25 and shrunk the offering from 90.2m shares to 82.4m shares. Investors liked the company, but "conversations focused very quickly on valuation," said a banker close to the deal. "They were heavily distracted by market sentiment, and needed to be convinced of the risk-reward ratio of getting into an IPO now."

*Shares in medical services company MediClin rose as much as 10% on their first day of trading on the Smax market for small cap companies this week. The rise came after the company had priced its Eu143.9m offering at the bottom of the Eu11-Eu13 range. The stock continued to trade above issue price during the week, closing up 3.26% at Eu11.41 yesterday (Thursday).

Everything went wrong for Telenor's Eu1.9bn IPO, tipped in September to raise as much as Eu7bn, but its participants are still delighted. The bookbuilding range had to be lowered 30%. The issue was priced at the bottom of the new range. And the shares fell in the aftermarket. But market conditions and the large quantity of telecoms paper that the market has already absorbed made the deal so hard that the company, the Norwegian government and the banks managing the sale are thankful it got done at all.

Gics show no signs of slowing down their impressive issuance. Premiere Funding, one of the quieter gics, stuck to its favourite sector: the three- to five-year euro sector. It sold a four-year euro30 million ($26.19 million) FRN, which matures January 16 2004. It is not issued until January 16 next year. Pacific Life, however, has to be one of the busiest gics. It has issued 16 trades this year in seven different currencies. And it returned to sterling for the first time since the beginning of March with a £

Great Belt came into the market twice. Once with a euro75 million ($65.94 million) note linked to the French CPI. It pays a coupon of 3.9% plus inflation annually. It also issued a plain vanilla three-year floating rate note at $200 million, paying semi-annually. Ole Poulsen, at Great Belt's treasury, says they may issue again before the end of the year - "if anything pops up." He adds: "But it would have to be at good levels. We have already begun our 2001 funding." Great Belt has done 21 trades so far in 2000 and Poulsen notes that the French CPI sector has been very attractive for them in the past few months.

The UK leveraged loan market will have a challenging start to the next year with several transactions supporting credits in the DIY retail sector already being lined up for launch in January. The deals will give investors a good chance to form their views on supporting leveraged transactions for DIY and retailers in general, but most banks are highly sceptical about the sector's attractiveness to leveraged product.

Dollar swap spreads dropped sharply this week. At midday yesterday (Thursday) in New York, the 10 year mid-market was 103.5bp. The week before, the market closed at 114bp. The five year midpoint was yesterday 95bp, also around 10bp tighter on the week. "We have seen continued receiving out of everywhere," said one trader at a money centre bank. A variety of counterparties were hitting bids, including bank portfolios, mortgage books and insurance firms. There was also some new issue related receiving this week, but in general the collapse of spreads is more due to the improved sentiment and greater optimism about credit.

The debt markets rallied this week in response to Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's speech on Tuesday, in which he indicated that interest rates may be set to fall next year. After a long period of rate rises and market uncertainty, Greenspan said that the US economy had cooled, warning instead that a sharp slowdown in growth may become the greatest cause for alarm.

Hamburgische Landesbank, always partial to some long-dated funding, managed to sell a thirty-year trade. The euro16 million ($15.66 million) FRN, paying interest quarterly, has an issue date of February 5 2001 and a maturity date of February 5 2031. The London branch of the Aa1-rated bank acted as the issuer. It is the smallest euro-denominated trade it has issued since May. Since it signed its programme in March 1998, 10.65% of its issuance has been in the 12-years plus part of the curve.

Sun Hung Kai Properties continues to be one of the most frequent coporate issuers to the Hong Kong dollar sector. The HK$100 million ($12.85 million) FRN goes out to December 10 2007 and pays interest quarterly and a final coupon of 7.3%. It has now issued nine Hong Kong dollar notes, raising the equivalent of $211.62 million this year. Other corporates in the currency in 2000 are gics Jackson National, AIG Sun America, John Hancock and Hilton, LVMH, Tele Danmark, GMAC and ETSA Utilities.

Hertz is upping the limit on its $500 million Euro-CP programme to $1 million. The programme, signed in 1997, has $504.58 million outstanding off 12 issues.