Search results for

The Standard & Poor's downgrading of the People's Republic of China this week added a new twist to the sovereign's likely difficulties in successfully launching a new benchmark early in the autumn. Dropping the sovereign rating from BBB+ to BBB has also widened the agency's rating differential between the Mainland and Hong Kong to three notches.

n ING Barings-BBL this week brought another new issuer to the Japanese securitisation market, parcelling 22,726 consumer instalment sales contracts for GC Corporation, a subsidiary of Promise Co, one of the larger listed finance companies in Japan.

Global co-ordinator Lehman Brothers is to reveal the price today (Friday) for the sale of stock in Versatel, the Dutch telecommunications group. With the deal benefiting from an outstanding response from institutional investors seeking to gain access to the Nasdaq/Amsterdam listed shares, buyers will likely be asked to pay the top end of the Eu8 to Eu10 indicated price range.

issuance of one year floating rate notes reached record levels this week, with a staggering Eu5.2bn issued in five deals as underwriters push to gain precedence in the euro league tables. Abbey National accounted for Eu2.5bn with a bond sole managed by Goldman Sachs.

Malaysian oil company Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) is seeking to take advantage of a lull in the Asian pipeline with the launch of its first benchmark dollar bond in almost three years. Roadshows for a $750m plus five to 10 year global bond begin next Monday in Tokyo under the lead of Credit Suisse First Boston, with Barclays Capital and Chase appointed as joint leads.

SENIOR bankers say that the number and the types of responses that Portugal has received over the past two weeks, following its requests for bids to arrange a jumbo credit facility, have been disappointing. Portugal is seeking a Eu1.5bn three year credit that will be used as a liquidity backstop facility. However, some of the few banks that replied to the request offered margins "too high for Portugal's liking", according to one market practitioner based in Germany.

Egypt General syndication of the $150m three year term loan for Commercial International Bank (Egypt) SAE will be wrapped up next week. Appetite was such that an increase is likely.

FOLLOWING the successful Dra364bn ($1.16bn) sale of stock in national telecommunications operator OTE, investors have been given their second chance to invest in Greece's stockmarket through the Dra77.4bn ($243m) sale of shares in Minoan Lines Shipping. Salomon Smith Barney and National Bank of Greece executed the sale, which involved the placement of 10,638,900 new shares in a bookbuilt primary offering to international and local institutional investors.

Italian regional and municipal authorities are at the forefront of Europe's developing local government bond market. Several issuers have already moved into the international bond and MTN markets, and many more are likely to follow. By Eugénie Ballara. Italy is in the vanguard of the developing municipal finance market in Europe. Four new regional and local authorities from Italy have already issued international bonds this year and several others are looking at the market. In terms of highlighting the potential of this burgeoning area of the Euromarkets, no issuer has done more than the Region of Sicily. Turned away by Italian lenders at the end of last year, the region staged an amazing comeback in April - raising Eu643m in the public bond markets as well as Eu235m through a schuldscheine issue and a private placement.

The sale of stock in Poland's high growth second tier telephone group, Netia, looks to be heading for a successful conclusion. Despite adverse press comment focusing on negative sentiment expressed by some potential investors, the book of demand is already twice covered with a week to go.

n The Turkish government is considering the privatisation of its national oil group, Tupras. The company has flirted with the international equity markets in the past five years but in the event always balked at a flotation. The stock is to be sold by the Privatisation Administration, the government holding company charged with most of the state's divestment programme.

Pemex this week demonstrated the attractions of asset backed securitisation over the international public bond markets for Latin new issues by placing $1.45bn of oil backed paper. The deal, while considered to be somewhat cheaper to investors than previous asset backed deals by Pemex, nonetheless provided far better pricing and size than the Mexican oil concern could achieve in the straight dollar bond market.