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The runaway syndication of the £3.95bn acquisition financing for Lafarge attracted critical comments this week as bankers found their commitments heavily scaled back. Lafarge has made a £3.4bn hostile cash bid for Blue Circle of the UK. Around 35 banks joined, taking the deal into a triple oversubscription. It raised about £13bn, making general syndication very unlikely. Co-arrangers may be cut back to around £98m, described by one banker as "peanuts".

Hong Kong ABN Amro (Hong Kong), Bayerische Landesbank (Hong Kong), DG Bank and Standard Chartered are close to the mandate for a HK dollar fundraising for AIG Finance (Hong Kong).

Asia * ARMS II Euro Fund II

Market report: Compiled by Glenn Blackley,

Australia Co-ordinating arrangers Chase Manhattan Australia and Toronto-Dominion Australia have extended the deadline for potential arrangers for the A$1.15bn dual tranche project financing for One.Tel Networks Finance until next week.

Deutsche Bank and Dresdner merging? Stranger things have happened at sea but don't you also have a nagging doubt that the main German banks have difficulty closing a bathroom door, yet alone a deal. Dresdner was supposed to be about to jump into the marital bed with Hypo-Vereinsbank which actually looked like a very cuddly twosome. Deutsche was still trying to grapple with integrating the dowdy Bankers Trust which never looked like the smartest acquisition.

The Sfr4.1bn financing for Cablecom was still generating intense discussion and caution this week as banks watched each other's movements to gauge the potential success of the deal. The deadline was pushed out from Wednesday to Friday, but with many commitments still outstanding and some banks slow to decide their stance, the deal is unlikely to close this week. The arrangers, Chase Manhattan and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, report that of the commitments they have already received, the majority are for the higher ticket level of Sfr400m (with an expected final allocation of Sfr200m). But comments among several potential lenders suggested some are more comfortable with the lower level of Sfr160m (final allocations of Sfr130m).

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