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Market report Compiled by Frank Hracs, TD Securities, Toronto

Commerzbank Securities recently launched a capital guaranteed bond linked to the Reuters CorpTop performance index, selling the instrument to a variety of insurance firms, fund managers, and a small number of retail accounts. The Eu250m deal matures in September 2005 and was priced at par. The minimum redemption is par and the return will be calculated as 90% of the performance of the index.

US energy company Enron raised $750m and Eu315m this week with the second issue from its highly innovative financing vehicle, Osprey Trust. Osprey offers investors a complex package of Enron related risks at ratings of Baa2/BBB/BBB - one notch lower than the company's senior unsecured debt.

Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter were awarded on Wednesday the mandate for the IPO of Frankfurt airport, Flughafen Frankfurt /Main (FAG), which is expected to raise up to $1bn. The banks won the appointment in a pitch against seven other contestants. The appointment of global co-ordinators has been keenly awaited since CEO Wilhelm Bender made it clear more than a year ago that he wanted float at least 25% of the company. The issue will follow the Eu5bn IPO of Deutsche Post, for which the syndicate briefing takes place today (Friday). In that sale, government holding company KfW will offer shares to retail investors in seven countries across Europe.

Susanne Webber shocked the equity markets in Germany this week by deciding to leave Deutsche Bank to become head of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson's equity syndicate. The move is a blow to Deutsche, where Webber has been for six years, but will come as a relief to Dresdner, whose equity capital markets team in Frankfurt has been ripped apart since the merger with Deutsche collapsed in April. The losses of Paul van Issum, co-head of the equity syndicate, to DLJ and Rudolf Vossen and his Neuer Markt team to JP Morgan have been particularly damaging. "Especially given that we lost Paul van Issum just a couple of months ago," said Andy Edmond, global head of the equity syndicate at Dresdner, "I am pleased to be able to rebuild so quickly."

Hungary After a protracted syndication, the $350m five year revolver for Mol has closed. Bankers looking at the deal commented that the margin of 40bp over Libor had failed to attract a high profile arranger group. However, the deal closed fully funded.

Argentina * Banco Hipotecario SA

The European leveraged buy-out market looks set for a burst of activity as the final quarter of the year gets underway. The quarter promises to bring not only a greater volume of deals to Europe's growing investor base for leveraged assets but also some of the largest transactions seen in Europe. Two big UK LBO deals were announced this week. The first is the £700m acquisition of Rank Group's UK holiday businesses by the privately held caravan parks operator, Bourne Leisure. Barclays Capital has the mandate to arrange the debt financing for the transaction which is understood to comprise some £650m of senior debt as well as a mezzanine tranche. Barclays is expected to approach a select group of banks for sub-underwriting positions over the next week.

* Landesbank Sachsen Girozentrale Rating: AAA (Fitch)

* CryoNetworks' Eu31m IPO listed on the Nouveau Marché on Monday. The offering, led by BNP Paribas with Cazenove as a co-lead manager, was priced at Eu19.50 on Friday, September 22. "Investors liked the story," said a banker from BNP Paribas. He added: "Investors who pulled out on Friday, did so mainly because of market conditions. Some were concerned by the volatility of the market, others already had stakes in CryoNetworks' parent company Cryointeractive and did not want to be overweight in the company."

Fitch this week released its latest analysis of the Landesbank sector, outlining several events that could result from the Banking Federation of the European Union's (BFEU) complaint to the European Commission (EC) that the German public sector banks' support mechanisms are illegal. In the most damaging outcome for Landesbanks, debt already issued by the public sector banks could be downgraded by one to three notches. However, Fitch affirmed its view that the outstanding debt of Landesbanks will be grandfathered, and left the banks' triple-A ratings unchanged with stable outlooks.

Oversubscription in excess of $15bn for KPN's $4.4bn equivalent global financing highlighted the appetite for telecoms paper this week, heralding a warmer than anticipated reception for the upcoming supply due from France Télécom, Telecom Italia and BT before year end. KPN's four tranche issue, including five, 10 and 30 year pieces denominated in dollars, and a five year in euros, was priced through spread talk and massive oversubscription resulted in sharp tightening after break of syndicate, before profit-taking took the spreads back yesterday (Thursday).