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MBNA International Bank, the UK subsidiary of US credit card issuer MBNA, has mandated JP Morgan and Barclays Capital to launch its largest ABS so far, and the first to be sold outside the sterling market. The 10 year deal, worth £500m, will comprise three tranches, with the senior piece denominated in euros. Roadshows for the tranche, worth some Eu725m and paying fixed rate interest, will begin on September 11, with pricing set for the following week.

Achmea Hypotheekbank, the mortgage subsidiary of Dutch bancassurance group Achmea Holding, will launch roadshows on September 4 for its first securitisation, a Eu1bn MBS issue. Lead managed jointly by ABN Amro and CIBC World Markets, Dutch Mortgage Portfolio Loans 1 BV will offer four tranches of bonds rated by all three agencies.

Institutional investors increasingly are turning to commodity derivatives for diversificiation.

CITIGROUP is to tap the Samurai bond market for an unprecedented ¥155bn, the largest Samurai bond issue to date. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Merrill Lynch also announced their intentions to issue in Samurai debt soon, reinforcing the trend of foreign interest in the Samurai bond market.

ING Barings scored a surprise success by placing $52m of First Pacific shares to international fund managers after the close of the Hong Kong market on Tuesday. ING Barings acted indirectly on behalf of the Indonesian government as the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) and Holdico Perkasa sold 177.48m shares to raise much needed funds for the troubled country.

THE MARKET reacted favourably this week to the decision by the Japanese ministry of finance (MoF) to appoint four joint global co-ordinators of the NTT6 share sale, rather than three, the number standardised in the NTT4 and NTT5 placements. There also appears to be agreement that the four firms - Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Nikko Salomon Smith Barney and Nomura - will face tough negotiations with the MoF on the eventual fee structure for the jumbo issue. The sale is likely to raise around $11.5bn if priced at recent trading levels.

Australia Members Equity, the Australian fund manager, announced this week that it is offering A$346 million of mortgage backed securities on August 23, via its issuing vehicle SMHL Fund SF-9. CSFB Australia is lead managing the ABS issue.

SUN LIFE Assurance of Canada, the world's third largest insurer, made its debut in the international public debt markets with a A$300m Kangaroo bond issue, as part of its A$2bn MTN programme. The five year transaction was split equally between a fixed and floating rate tranche and received solid interest from the domestic investor base. The insurer, which demutualised in the first quarter of this year, had only made small private placements before this issue, totalling A$280m.

THE KINGDOM of Thailand is in discussions with financial institutions to lead manage a Samurai issue, its first international bond since April 1997. "We have a yen denominated loan maturing in the near future that will need to be refinanced," said an official at the ministry of finance. "To do this we are looking to issue a Samurai bond for about ¥35bn, and are speaking to several people about arranging this."

DESPITE prolonging bookbuilding, IT services provider 1VALUE.com became another Neuer Markt casualty this week. The company pulled its Eu26m IPO after lead manager Trigon Wertpapierhandelsbank was unable to attract institutional investors into the book.

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