Search results for

THE REPUBLIC of Turkey spectacularly prised open the US dollar bond market for emerging market issuers yesterday (Thursday) with a $750m 10 year global issue via lead managers JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. The issue was driven by an unusually strong European institutional bid.

The £300m five year revolver for MBNA International Bank has been signed. The deal was oversubscribed and increased to £325m. The arranger is Bank One. Co-arrangers are Bank of America, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and WestLB. They take £25m for a 12.5bp flat fee.

* Chase Manhattan Corp Rating: Aa3/A+/AA-

* Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc Rating: Aa3/A+/AA

Weaker than anticipated non-farm payroll numbers released last Friday after a week of anti-inflationary data sparked a remarkable reversal for the US dollar markets, provoking record issuance this week. Over $19bn of deals were digested, mainly by the US investor base, including a $4.5bn two tranche sale for Ford Motor Credit, a $3bn two tranche issue for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and a $3bn three tranche funding for International Paper.

Belgium Interbrew, which recently acquired Whitbread's UK brewing assets for £400m, is closing in on the brewing assets of Bass, also based in the UK. The Belgian brewing company is thought to be ready to pay around £2.2bn for the prize, beating off competition from Carlsberg and others.

WestLB this week created a Global Financial Markets (GFM) business division that will combine treasury, fixed income, derivatives, emerging markets, loan syndication, debt capital markets, and relevant research areas. Humphrey Percy, former global treasury head, will be GFM division head.

* BMW Finance NV Guarantor: Bayerische Motoren Werke AG

EURONEXT took a bold leap forward this week and increased the pressure on iX and Nasdaq in the race to create the first global equity market. The merged Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam exchanges - which are due to exchange shares in September - announced discussions with the New York Stock Exchange, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Australia, Toronto, Mexico and São Paulo to create a global blue chip market.

* Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

* WestLB completed the Eu77.5m secondary offering for TFG Venture Capital on Wednesday. The deal was priced at Eu31, with a 3% discount to the market price at the close of bookbuilding. Including a greenshoe of 300,000 shares, the offering comprised 2.5m shares. Because the deal represented more than 10% of the company's market capitalisation, the shares were in a rights offering in addition to the bookbuilding. About two-thirds of existing shareholders took up the offer, with 1.1m shares sold in the rights offering.