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Royal Bank of Scotland has dropped Merrill Lynch as arranger off its £

Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) signed a $500 million Euro-CP programme on March 28. The arranger is Goldman Sachs. The issuer already has a previous CP facility but Jonas Lundeberg, director at SAS's finance department, thought the time was right for a new signing. He says: "We had an old programme of $200 million, with dealers who were no longer in the business. So instead of increasing this, we decided to set up a new facility." He continues: "The two programmes happened to run in tandem, but they both have different arrangers. They are both part of a much larger funding plan." The issuer will leave the marketing of the facility to its dealers but Lundeberg is confident that they should have no real problems. He says: "There are four dealers on the programme and marketing the facility is part of their role. But the old programme is not unknown, although it was not used very frequently, so we are not a new name in the market." The dealers are Citibank, Deutsche Bank, SEB Merchant Banking and the arranger. Chase Manhattan is the IPA.

Norway Arrangers and underwriters Lloyds TSB Capital Markets and Den Norske Bank have closed the syndication of a Eu163m construction and charter financing for Knutsen OAS. Six banks are understood to have joined the transaction.

The National Property Fund launched a two tranche 18 month FRN through CSFB and Slovenska Sporitelna, a subsidiary of Erste Bank, this week. The bonds benefited from scarcity value, as the Slovak Republic is not expected to issue this year. The bond is made up of a Eu100m piece with a coupon of Euribor plus 90bp, and a Sk6.5bn (Eu149.4m) tranche at Bribor plus 90bp. Both issues were priced at par.

Sigma has added Credit Suisse First Boston and Westdeutsche Landesbank as dealers off its $10 billion Euro-MTN programme.

Investors flocked to Slovenia's Eu450m 10 year bond issue this week, in the knowledge that the sovereign may not return to the market again until it becomes an EU member. Orders had to be scaled back by lead managers JP Morgan and UBS Warburg to meet an absolute limit on the issue size imposed by the republic.

Schroder Salomon Smith Barney is restructuring its continental European equity operations by appointing country heads for its major markets.

* Avon Energy Partners Holdings Rating: Baa2/BBB+

Toshiba Corp has issued a seven-year ¥700 million ($5.53 million) note off its $1.3 billion Euro-MTN programme. The note pays interest semi-annually and has a final coupon of 0.40%. The note will be issued on April 25 and has a seven-year maturity. This is the issuer's 13th trade of the year - all of which have come in yen.

EuroWeek hears that Scottish Power is moving to the market to raise a refinance facility. The deal is expected to be split into a US and a UK tranche with about £1bn syndicated on the UK side. The utility was last in the market in 1999 with a £600m 364 day revolver arranged by Royal Bank of Scotland. The loan paid a margin of 45bp and closed oversubscribed but not increased

Globals * Goldman Sachs Group

* Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd Rating: Aa3/AA-AA-