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* Commonwealth Bank of Australia Rating: Aa3/AA-/AA

Aventis, the French pharmaceutical company, signed its long-awaited euro1.5 billion ($1.31 billion) Euro-MTN programme on September 20 via UBS Warburg. The dealers off the facility are the arranger, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Salomon Smith Barney. The programme, rated A3 by Moody's, marks the ninth French corporate issuer to come to the market this year. It has been a busy period for French corporates, with French signings making up 41% of all new corporate programmes this year. Aventis, formed when France's Rhone-Poulenc and Germany's Hoechst merged, has become the world's number one drug company. As a pure life-sciences company, Aventis makes animal health products, herbicides, pesticides, cancer drugs, and other pharmaceuticals. Rhodia, a spin-off from the same merger that produced Aventis, also signed a euro1.5 billion Euro-MTN shelf this year. The facility has $750.53 million outstanding off two trades.

Financial advisory group AWD is offering shares at an astonishing discount to its closest comparables in its Eu535m-Eu614m IPO. The company is selling 9m shares at Eu54-Eu62, although it has the option to increase the price range by up to 15%.

Did you take the time to read the major management changes announced by Morgan Stanley recently? Didn't this strike you as slightly odd? Why should Stanley, a house which likes to keep itself to itself and never open its laundry basket to the public, suddenly be reshuffling the pack before even the bonus payments have been made? The major international financial press did not help the situation by reporting the changes in such a fuzzy fashion that we were probably as confused as many EuroWeek readers. Had Joe Perella been promoted or pushed upstairs into a non-job? Was John Studzinski, head of investment banking for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Europe, dancing in the aisles after being made deputy chairman of Morgan Stanley International Inc? Was Sir David Walker, who has become rich beyond his wildest dreams after penury at the Bank of England and the Siberian saltmine of the SIB (very RIP thank heavens), being nudged quietly out to graze in forever green pastures?

New issuance dominated events this week in the sterling swap market. Barclays issued a £275m upper tier two perpetual, callable at 20 years, on Thursday, and was soon after spotted hitting bids at the 20 year maturity, said dealers. This business was sufficient to drive down spreads by some 2bp-3bp on the day, to leave the 20 year market at 108bp-105bp by the close yesterday.

BNP Paribas has made a number of changes and hires to its equity capital markets (ECM) group. "During the uncertain period," Howard Jones, global head of ECM, said: "when SG and BNP were both bidding for Paribas there were some departures from Paribas. These recruitments are partly to replenish that loss, but also to build and grow further than the level we were at before."

* Valtion asuntorahasto, the Housing Fund of Finland, will launch its fifth securitisation of loans to social housing providers today (Friday) or on Monday, via BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse First Boston and Leonia Corporate Bank. Fennica No 5 plc is believed to have found strong demand and is expected to be oversubscribed. Investors were attracted by the impeccable credit record of the Housing Fund's assets and by the virtual certainty that the notes will be redeemed as bullets on their expected maturities.

Nomura began roadshows this week for an innovative Eu1bn securitisation backed by Swedish residential mortgages originated by the Swedish National Housing Finance Corp (SBAB). In an extremely unusual move for a European securitisation, the deal will include a tranche in yen - and it may also become the first European ABS to be distributed on the internet.