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* Warburg Dillon Read this week completed a fully underwritten equity placement in Fortis 'B' shares, the common stock representing the bank's Belgium business. The selling shareholder was a major Japanese shareholder which sold 5.24m shares at Bfr33.70 on a closing price of Bfr33.72. The stock was widely placed throughout Europe with one sizeable order coming from the UK market. The shares closed slightly weaker after the trade and settled yesterday around Bfr32.70.

Market commentary: Compiled by Glenn Blackley,

OLIVETTI has signed in the underwriters of its Eu22.5bn credit that is backing its Eu60.4bn bid for control of Telecom Italia (TI). Arrangers Chase, DLJ, Lehman Brothers and Mediobanca oversaw the signing that took place late last week. The banks are Abbey National, Banca Commerciale Italiana, Banca di Roma, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Bank of America, Bank of Nova Scotia, Banque Nationale de Paris, Barclays, Bayerische Landesbank, Caja de Madrid, Cariplo, Commerzbank, DG Bank, HypoVereinsbank, Industrial Bank of Japan, KBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Toronto Dominion. One more bank joined, but has requested that its name be withheld. They receive a drop dead fee of 50bp.

David Rimmer has joined ABC International Bank as assistant general manager and head of syndications a little over a month after he retired from being head of syndications at Bank Austria-Creditanstalt. Rimmer was at Bank Austria Creditanstalt for two years. Before that he was a team leader in syndications at NatWest for 10 years.

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* Deutsche Siedlungs- und Landesrentenbank Rating: Aaa/AAA

GERMAN AGENCY Landwirt-schaftliche Rentenbank took the first step in a strategy to move its credit closer to the European agency market this week with its largest ever transaction, a Eu1bn 10 year issue sold into Europe and Asia. Bookrunners ABN Amro and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson launched the July 2009 issue at 34bp over the July 2009 Bund. Over 90% of the leads' allocations were sold outside Germany, to areas including the Benelux, the UK, France, Scandinavia and Japan.

Sweden The successful revolver for Swedish Match was signed in Gothenburg on April 20. Although the deal was oversubscribed, the borrower chose to scale banks back instead of accepting the extra funds.

GLOBAL co-ordinator Deutsche Bank has completed the sale of new stock for Securitas, the Swedish security group. The deal was helped by the recovery in most of the major equity markets these past few days after the sell-off the previous week.

THE REGION of Sicily puts its budgetary woes behind it this week thanks to the successful completion of its Eu878m financing package arranged by Merrill Lynch.

* Commerzbank AG Rating: Aa3/AA-