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Islandsbanki-FBA, one of Scandinavia's most successful issuers, is to sign a Euro-CP programme. The bank, which is arranging the euro500 million ($419.97 million) facility itself, hopes to be using it by mid-November. Islandsbanki-FBA will be only the second Icelandic issuer in the Euro-CP market, following the republic's facility, which signed in 1986. Ingvar Ragnarsson, senior funding manager at Islandsbanki-FBA, says the short-term facility has been considered since FBA and Islandsbanki merged in the summer. "After Moody's upgraded us in June from P-2 to P-1 that opened the opportunity for us." Islandsbanki-FBA has issued $894 million-worth of debt off its Euro-MTN programme this year but 67% of the debt has had a maturity of less than two years. But Ragnarsson is confident that the Euro-CP programme will attract new investors and will not overlap with the Euro-MTN programme. He says: "We will keep on issuing short-term stuff off the MTN programme but it should not harm the CP programme. We will concentrate on issuing one- to three-month paper and some three- to six-month paper off the Euro-CP. It just adds one more pillar to our funding." Once the programme is running the issuer expects to have about euro250 million outstanding off the facility. Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs join the issuer on the dealer group.

* Data Service, an Italian company specialised in document management for banks and financial institutions, on Wednesday priced its Eu55.2m offering at the top end of the Eu25-Eu40 price range. "Given market conditions, we are very satisfied," said Alessia de Marinis, who is in charge of investors' relations at Data Service.

The Province of Buenos Aires was forced to offer one year paper at wide spreads this week in a bid to raise Eu75m in a volatile euro market. The deal, led by BNP Paribas, was the only Latin issue to surface during the week, as investors shied away from higher risk assets. Bond markets continued to be wracked by choppy equity markets, higher oil prices and the potential for conflict in the Middle East.

Republic of Lebanon has raised the ceiling off its $2.5 billion global MTN shelf to $3.5 billion. Its $400 million note, issued on October 6 2000, pushed outstandings to $2.75 billion.

The possibility of a Eu10bn loan launching for popular Spanish borrower Repsol YPF attracted widespread attention from the market this week. Goldman Sachs, Citibank/SSSB and La Caixa are arranging a Eu10bn loan for the company to fund the possible takeover of Iberdrola. The bid would be via Gas Natural, which is 45% owned by Repsol. However, earlier this week, Gas Natural's initial bid was rejected when Iberdrola and Endesa, Spain's largest electricity company, announced that the companies had agreed terms on a friendly merger

Reseau Ferre de France has increased its euro5 billion ($4.2 billion) Euro-MTN facility to euro10 billion. The programme is rated triple-A by Standard & Poor's and has $5.6 billion outstanding off 20 trades.

Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern told the country's parliament this week that it will be asked to approve the I£600m (Eu762m) IPO of Aer Lingus next month. The Irish airline must, however, resolve two industrial disputes with staff before the flotation can go ahead. The Irish government is expected to sell its 95% stake in the company this spring. Aer Lingus may also issue new shares. The company's staff hold the remaining 5% of the stock, and are expected to increase this to about 15%, in line with the IPO of Eircom in 1999.

Norway Commerzbank and SEB have been mandated to arrange a financing for Finans Banken. The borrowers last deal was a $180m term loan signed in October 1999. That deal was arranged by Bayerische Landesbank and Den nord Bank Markets and paid a margin of 22.5bp over Libor. The deal was oversubscribed by 80% and increased from $100m.

* Rabobank Nederland NV Rating: Aaa/AAA

* European Investment Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA

* General Electric Capital Corp Rating: Aaa/AAA