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Slightly calmer equity markets this week enabled corporate spreads to improve, but new issuance was light, as many European markets were closed on Wednesday for All Souls. In dollars, activity was subdued ahead of next Tuesday's US presidential election. Improvements in the agency sector were reflected in the successful execution of Fannie Mae's new 10 and 30 year Benchmark Securities. The $5bn 6.625% 2010s were priced to yield 91bp over and the $2bn 6.625% 2030s at 95.5bp over. At launch, these levels were 1bp inside Fannie Mae's outstanding Benchmark Securities in the two maturities.

Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and CIBC have arranged the first European syndication for a co-location borrower. The banks arranged a Eu170m five year loan for co-location European telecom service provider Digiplex. The borrower also took Eu57m from private equity investors (including Carlyle Group) and will use the funding to continue its European expansion. The arrangers were joined by four co-arrangers: Dresdner Bank, Toronto-Dominion, Bank of Montreal and ABB. With these four, the deal is fully funded and unlikely to be launched into general syndication. The facility is divided into two tranches. Tranche 'A' is a five year Eu110m term loan and tranche 'B' is a Eu60m revolver. Both have a margin of 425bp over Libor, racheting on a senior debt to Ebitda grid.

Despite moderate third quarter results, automobile manufacturer spreads have recently begun to tighten after several months of volatile performance. However, concerns over the auto industry in North America remain.

Australia Australian Railway Group, an alliance between Wesfarmers and Genesee & Wyoming Australia, was named the winning bidder of the Westrail Freight assets earlier this week.

Autonomy made a powerful debut gaining 7% on its first day on the London Stock Exchange this week following the successful completion of a £217m selldown of shares by venture capitalists and management. Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs were global co-ordinators of the deal which priced at 3276p - a discount of just 0.92% from the Nasdaq close on the previous day. The 6.65m share deal was around six times oversubscribed with UK institutions driving the book, according to bankers connected to the sale.

Shareholders in UBS who have become used to disappointment since the merger two years ago must have been pleased, last week, to see their underperforming stock rise by 4% in a single day. In order to show the new shareholders from PaineWebber that it had no skeletons rattling around in the bank's cupboards, UBS commendably decided to release its third quarter earnings ahead of schedule.

Deutsche has hired seven equity analysts from DLJ. They are Jon Bailey and David Bradshaw who cover oil exploration and production, Arving Sanger covering oilfield services and equipment, Jay Dobson on electric utilities, Alain Karaoglan and Vanessa Wilson on property and casualty insurance and life insurance, respectively, and Greg Nejmeh on building and building products. Deutsche has also recruited beverages analyst Marc Greenberg from PaineWebber, and Eric Katzman, a food industry analyst, who joined from Merrill Lynch in late September.

Baxter International, the corporation from the US medical sector, plans to sign a euro600 million ($516.94 million) Euro-CP with UBS Warburg as arranger. The dealers are Barclays Capital, CSFB, Deutsche Bank and the arranger. Bob Hombach, assistant treasurer at Baxter International, says: "Our goal is to sign in the next few weeks, but nothing has been finalized yet." The issuer is split rated, with A-1 and F1 short-term ratings from Standard & Poor's and Fitch, but a P-2 rating from Moody's. The issuer makes equipment to help with blood-related disorders. It will be the 11th US corporate to sign a Euro-CP this year, following Snap-on, Rohm & Haas, Eaton Corp, GMAC, Eiffel Funding, Conoco, Dow Chemical, Lexington Parker Capital, Tupperware and Procter & Gamble.