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NM Rothschild & Sons closed its first European securitisation this week, six months after founding a team in London - the bank structured a £41m bond parcelling UK auto loans for Benton Finance Ltd, a specialist finance company. "Our plan is to reproduce the success we have had in the US market in helping small and medium sized independent finance companies to access the securitisation market," said Charles Keay, head of London banking and treasury financial products at Rothschild. "Our leasing business, Five Arrows, gives us good contacts with this sector. We will focus on the UK until we have established critical mass."

The Del Monte Group, famous for its orange juice, this week launched a Eu60m securitisation of its revenues from European sales of beverages, canned fruit and vegetables and juice concentrates. Bonds backed by trade receivables are rare - the asset class is usually routed through asset backed commercial paper conduits - and in Europe most of the deals have come from food companies, notably the Italian firms Parmalat, Cirio and Cremonini. Food suppliers tend to have a well diversified customer base, and their receivables make up a large part of their assets.

Platform Home Loans, the UK sub-prime mortgage lender bought by principal finance investment adviser Cabot Square Capital in August, this week refinanced the acquisition with a £297m securitisation via Barclays Capital. The company, most recently known as The Money Store, has now resumed the name given to it by Bear Stearns, which launched the business in the mid-1990s. Since then it has been owned by Lehman Brothers, The Money Store Inc and First Union Corp.

Paribas this week launched its second securitisation of Italian non-performing loans, for regional savings bank Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze. The Eu129m deal, Perseo Finance, is similar in structure and motivation to Banca di Roma's Eu1.4bn Trevi Finance transaction in July. Carifi belongs to a different level of the Italian banking system, however. Like most of its class, it is owned by a foundation, but has recently received equity participation from commercial banks - in this case San Paolo IMI (15%) and Paribas (7%).

Morgan Stanley Mortgage Capital this week launched the second in its programme of securitisations of UK and Irish commercial mortgages. Morgan Stanley aims to introduce to Europe the US investment banking practise of making loans to real estate owners with the specific intent of securitising them, starting with the UK and Ireland where lease terms and legislation are favourable to securitisation. The £359.44m deal, European Loan Conduit No 2 BV, is backed entirely by UK loans, unlike ELOC 1, launched in August, which also included Irish collateral. The pool comprises 11 loans to 10 real estate owners, secured on 105 commercial investment properties and a portfolio of 272 pubs.

n Barclays Bank is preparing to launch its first collateralised loan obligation via Barclays Capital. Bar CLO will use a leveraged, synthetic structure to offer $200m of bonds, conveying the junior risk on a $2bn global portfolio of investment grade loans. The five year deal comprises tranches rated triple-A and single-A by Fitch IBCA and Moody's, and triple-B and double-B pieces rated by Fitch IBCA only.

Ottoman Bank of Turkey this week executed one of the first emerging market future flow securitisations to be sold as a bond in a currency other than dollars, with a Eu100m five year deal backed by export finance payments.

Ending months of torpor, the international yen market has roared back into life with an array of new issuance in the global yen and Euroyen markets targeted at international and domestic investors.

Japan is back in business - that is the clear message from the international financial markets. A booming stockmarket; the falling costs of international borrowing; a rise in cross-border M&A activity; growing yen activity in the capital markets - all are signs of growing confidence that Japan is starting to recover from its decades of decline.

Japan Highway Public Corporation needs ¥5tr ($50bn) in new funding each year to keep upgrading and extending the already immaculate Japanese road system. There is the likelihood that Japan Highway will be a far more regular name in the international markets as its main funding source in Japan, the post office savings funds, is likely to be cut back as depositors switch to higher yield investment.

If 1998 was the year when things went horribly wrong for Japanese issuers in the global debt markets, 1999 is the year when they all started to go right again - and with surprising speed.

The Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC) has been both aggressive and innovative in its international borrowings this year. In its earlier guise as the former Export-Import Bank of Japan (Jexim) it reopened the international markets for Japan's government guaranteed issuers (JGGIs) in early February with an innovative $1bn five year floating rate note.