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THE PORTUGUESE government has completed the sale of 12m shares in Brisa-AutoEstradas de Portugal. The sale was the third opportunity for investors to purchase shares in the state-controlled motorway/toll road operator, and illustrates the strength of demand for defensive stocks. The sale was run by Banco Cisf and Deutsche Bank and involved the divestment of 20% of Brisa's equity capital. The deal attracted strong orders from investors both in the local and international markets.

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INTERNATIONAL telecoms company Cable & Wireless has launched a £3.8bn syndicated loan, secured on its 50% stake in UK mobile phone network One-2-One. Lead arrangers Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, HSBC and Paribas will each underwrite £800m of two year debt to a special purpose company, enabling it to acquire the stake.

ITALIAN car manufacturer Fiat and banking group Unicredito are to set up a securitisation services company in Dublin's International Financial Services Centre. The unit will structure securitisations for its parent companies and their clients. Four of Commerzbank's eight securitisation staff, including group head Fabio Salvalaggio, are leaving the bank to set up the joint venture, to be called Euro Capital Structures.

GREENWICH NatWest this week launched a £64.64m securitisation to finance construction of a new acute care general hospital in Bishop Auckland, in the northeast of England. The issuer, Criterion Healthcare Ltd, has a contract from South Durham Health Care NHS Trust to design and build a new 321 bed hospital and refurbish some existing buildings, to replace an out of date hospital nearby. Criterion will then provide all non-clinical services to the hospital for a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 60 years.

BANKERS Trust, UK property investment company IM Properties, and property entrepreneur Nigel Wright have formed a new joint venture to acquire 23 companies that own over 1,200 residential properties in the UK. First Residential Investment Ltd (FRIL) has bought the companies for £56m from a major building society. They were created in the early 1990s under the government's Business Expansion Scheme, that allowed private investors to shelter money from tax by paying off building societies' bad debts on properties repossessed during the housing recession. Most of these companies have now paid back all their investors, and own the housing free of debt.

MERRILL Lynch last week extended a £200m loan to finance Mercury Asset Management's £290m acquisition of Greycoat plc, a listed UK property company that owns some 20 office properties in the City and West End of London. "The deal is a combination of mortgage finance technology and leveraged buyout lending," said John Nacos, European head of Merrill Lynch's mortgage capital and real estate group.