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n ABN Amro Bank NV Rating: Aa2/AA

The equity new issue pipeline is filling up fast after the summer lull, with bankers hopeful that this week's interest rate move in the US will provide a helpful boost to market conditions. Issuers and underwriters are eager to get their deals into the market as quickly as possible, conscious that the primary market is likely to shut down completely from late November because of Y2K concerns.

General Motors Acceptance Corp introduced a new structure to the US asset backed market this week with a $2.125bn securitisation of retail auto loans that offers soft bullet maturities for the first time. Credit card backed securities have long enjoyed an unchallenged position as the benchmark ABS class in the US, partly because of the huge volume of supply from reputable issuers, but also because the master trust structure allows deals to be structured with soft bullet maturities that make them convenient investments and good surrogates for Treasuries.

Market commentary: Compiled by Jim Webber,

Swap rates held up this week, in the face of a deluge of new euro denominated bonds. Much is still to come - a great deal of which will be swapped. Ten year swaps traded around 51-53bp over the July 2009 Bund, while five year swaps were around 34-37bp over cash for much of the week.

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Mounting supply pressures quickly took over in the US market this week where interest rate concerns left off, causing a number of large new issues to succumb to investor demands for wider spreads. While Wells Fargo was able to pounce on a brief corporate bond rally to issue a $1.5bn global after the Fed announced a 25bp rate hike and return to neutral monetary bias on Tuesday, issuers such as Tyco International Ltd were forced to widen out spread talk to get US domestic deals done on Thursday.

DEUTSCHE BANK has launched the jumbo Eu4.1bn multi-tranche credit backing Linde's Skr30.9m bid for AGA of Sweden. The loan consists of a Eu2.6bn one year term loan (A1), a Eu1bn three year term loan (A2) and a Eu500m one year revolver.

Oman CIBC World Markets has signed a £10m line of credit, supported by the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department, that will finance contracts between UK companies supplying plant and equipment and associated companies in the Sultanate of Oman as approved by the Oman International Bank.

n Chase Manhattan has hired four new staff for its international fixed income capital markets team in Europe. All report to Yann Gindre, head of capital markets for international fixed income in Europe. Jean-Louis Ebelin has joined as a vice president and head of European corporate origination. He was formerly at Commerzbank where he was a director and co-head of spread origination.

n Israeli power utility Israel Electric Corp (IEC) this week was forced to shelve its plans for a debut euro denominated bond after the country's finance ministry insisted it switch its funding focus to the Yankee bond market. The ministry ordered the change because IEC's planned euro issue has run up against a number of covenant-related issuance restrictions which could have delayed it by several months.