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The Eu5bn facility for Pernod Ricard, backing the French company's shared purchase of Seagram's spirits division, is more than just a jumbo acquisition facility. Not only is it the first new big-ticket structured loan financing of 2001, but it is also the first real test of market confidence - and therefore liquidity.

The Eu5bn facility for Pernod Ricard, backing the French company's shared purchase of Seagram's spirits division, is more than just a jumbo acquisition facility. Not only is it the first new big-ticket structured loan financing of 2001, but it is also the first real test of market confidence - and therefore liquidity.

The eagerly awaited £3.6bn facility backing Lafarge's acquisition of Blue Circle was launched yesterday (Thursday) via mandated arrangers BNP Paribas (joint bookrunner, documentation and facility agent) and Dresdner (joint bookrunner). The deal comes head-to-head with the launch of Pernod Ricard (see separate story) but given the popularity of both borrowers and the even pricing on the deal there is unlikely to be any conflict.

* Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank AG Rating: Aaa/AAA

Pfandbrief Bank International (PBI) offers a strange excuse for the delay in signing its euro1 billion ($936.4 million) Euro-CP programme. Martin Schulte, PBI's head of treasury, says: "It's quite simple really. The CP facility had to take a step back because PBI has shown such dynamic growth in the last year." But Schulte goes on to explain that maintaining a balance sheet of euro3 billion with just 10 people meant priorities had to be assigned to other projects. The Euro-CP programme was due to be launched alongside the euro7.5 billion Euro-MTN programme in August 2000 (see MTNWeek, issue 184). But it got pushed to the background when the Euro-MTN facility started issuing, especially when it found investors hungry for a euro750 million public lettres de gage issue. The new facility is the issuer's first venture into the CP market and Schulte is confident that with an A-1 rating from Standard & Poor's, it will be a success. He says: "It is not so important to get our issuance level up to the euro1 billion ceiling. More crucial is that investors learn to accept our paper as quickly as they did with the MTN. With a little bit of homework we should do our first trades by the end of next week." The programme can issue in any currency and all the notes will be unsecured. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter is the arranger. The dealers are the arranger and the issuer, Barclays Capital, Citibank, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and HypoVereinsbank. This is the third Euro-CP arrangership that Morgan Stanley DW has scooped since it came back into the market exactly a year ago. The two other signings are Tesco and Erste Bank.

Pfizer has added Deutsche Bank as a dealer to its $3 billion Euro-CP shelf. The facility has $1.66 billion outstanding off 38 trades. Although Bob Fauteux, corporate media relations at the issuer, was unwilling to comment on details, he says: "We have updated the programme to come in line with the amendments to the FASB rule 133."

Pfandbriefstelle, the triple-A rated Austrian agency, is planning to make its debut in the yen sector. The issuer, which is a collection of eight Austrian Landes-Hypotekenbanks, signed its euro5 billion ($4.64 billion) Euro-MTN programme at the very end of last year. It launched its debut Eurobond (denominated in euros) earlier this month. It hopes to issue its first yen trade by the end of the week via Nomura and UBS Warburg. It is expected to be a ¥50 billion 10-year deal. Hannes Leitgeb, treasurer at Vorarlberger Landes- und Hypothekenbank and advisor to Pfandbriefstelle says: "¥50 billion is the minimum amount you need to do to make the trade liquid."

The Republic of Poland stunned the international bond markets this week by wrapping up its year’s borrowing needs in a robust and punchily priced Eu750m 10 year offering through Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch — the biggest single tranche issue yet from an EU convergence play.

The Province of Buenos Aires took advantage of the lack of Argentine sovereign issuance at the short end of the yield curve to launch a Eu200m three year deal this week at a tighter spread than its recent two year offering. The transaction, led by Caboto and BNP Paribas, was priced at 99.57, or 613bp over the Bobl, compared with an original 627bp spread on the Eu200m two year euro that Caboto and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein priced on January 9, and to which they added another Eu100m on January 24.

The Republic of Poland stunned the international bond markets this week by wrapping up its year’s borrowing needs in a robust and punchily priced Eu750m 10 year offering through Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch — the biggest single tranche issue yet from an EU convergence play.

* European Investment Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA

Province of Ontario has rewarded a clutch of Canadian banks that have consistently sold trades for the issuer. CIBC World Markets, Royal Bank of Canada and TD Securities have been appointed to the province's dealer panel after lead managing six of the eight trades that the issuer has sold since January 1999. Tokyo-Mitsubishi International, which has not done any trades for the province in this period, has also been added as a dealer to the C$8 billion ($5.34 billion) facility, signed in 1992.