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BRITISH STEEL is on the verge of mandating a group of banks to arrange a jumbo credit of between £2bn and £2.5bn that will finance a £694m special dividend to shareholders as well as support its merger with Hoogovens, the Dutch steel maker. Frontrunners in the race to win the deal are ABN Amro, Citibank, Dresdner and HSBC. Also thought to be close to the deal - but will probably come into the deal as co-arrangers - are Deutsche, Chase, Greenwich NatWest and Lloyds-TSB.

n Export Development Corp Rating: Aa1/AAA

European investors this week digested the first two courses of an extended banquet of mortgage backed issues from Australian lenders. Deutsche Bank sold $500m of bonds backed by Australian mortgages for Macquarie Securitisation Ltd, while Westpac brought the first Euromarket securitisation of New Zealand mortgages, in a $350.5m deal through Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Both deals have been successfully sold, but the crowded market and rivalry between investment banks led to disagreements over pricing - now almost commonplace in the highly competitive international Australian MBS market.

ZAGREBACKA banka has extended the maturity of its three year facility by an extra year to escape paying a reserve requirement to the National Bank of Croatia. Three quarters of the original syndicate have joined, raising about Eu140m for the extension. The original 1997 facility for DM400m has also been redenominated into euros (to nearly Eu200m). The margin rises from 50bp to 150bp over Libor from June 1999, and to 225bp from June 2000. It will move according to the rating of the borrower. There is also a flat extension fee.

n Kommunekredit Rating: Aaa/AAA

Czech Republic Komercni Banka and Midland Bank have arranged a $50m three year syndicated loan for Trinecke Zelezarny, a Czech steel company. The facility will be used to cover the export contract of an order by CMC Trading of Switzerland.

Argentina n Province of Buenos Aires

n Argentaria Global Finance Ltd Guarantor: Argentaria

n Alstom Amount: Eu500m

The US dollar market breathed a sigh of relief as the Ford Motor Credit jumbo financing was finally launched after overhanging the market for several weeks. The four tranche deal raised $7.5bn for Ford Motor Credit's debut GlobLS transaction - the first ever attempt by a corporate to mirror the liquidity of the US agency market. Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney were lead managers.

The sale by Hoechst of its 45% stake in Swiss specialty chemicals group Clariant has succeeded beyond expectations, with the German vendor taking advantage of buoyant market conditions and increased appetite for cyclical stocks following recent positive indications of continental European economic growth. Hoechst announced its plan to sell between 30% and 45% of Clariant's equity capital some weeks ago, a decision which caused some concern among investors over the possibility of an overhang of shares.

Ford Motor Credit brought a new dimension to the corporate bond market this week when it raised $7.5bn from the first deal off its new benchmark issuance programme. Dubbed GlobLS, these new securities are the first attempt by a corporate issuer to mirror the liquidity and transparency of issuance programmes from US agency issuers such as Fannie Mae.