Erste Bank der Osterreichischen Sparkassen (Erste Bank) has signed a euro1 billion ($848.78 million) Euro-CP programme. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter won the arrangership. Heimo Rottensteiner, head of funding at Erste Bank, says: "We set the Euro-CP up as one more funding instrument to complete our funding facilities." The issuer already has a euro7 billion debt issuance facility, signed in 1998. And one of its holding companies, GiroCredit Bank der Sparkassen, has a $1 billion Euro-MTN shelf. Rottensteiner adds: "Our main activities will be in dollar and yen and our aim is to get a focus on our clients. We will be marketing ourselves mainly to money market funds." Fitch has assigned the programme a rating of F1. Barclays Capital and Citibank join the arranger as dealers.
September 22, 2000