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Singapore provided an unusual focus for Asian equity capital markets this week, with offerings for Raffles Holdings and a rare convertible from Keppel Telecommunications. DBS, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Warburg Dillon Read completed the long expected IPO for Raffles Holdings. A total of A$255m was raised from the sale of 300m shares and the institutional tranche was 3.5 times oversubscribed.

C&W Optus has bought what is expected to be the last corporate bond from Australia this year, with the launch last Friday of a debut A$200m three year fixed rate deal. Led by ANZ, with Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Merrill Lynch as dealers, the Baa2/BBB+ rated transaction was priced at 99.74 with a semi-annual coupon of 7.25% to yield 7.46%. Due 15 November 2002, the deal had a launch spread of 69bp over swaps or 123.5bp over Commonwealth Government Bonds. That was in line with indicative levels and offered a 5bp yield pick-up over BBB+ rated John Fairfax on a like-for-like basis.

Australia Macquarie was able to exercise the 2.5m share greenshoe for the government's A$150m selldown of its shares in Bank of Queensland this week.

The Port of Singapore Authority (PSA Corp) will hold final presentations on Monday to select an adviser to assist the wholly government-owned group restructure its balance sheet in a bid to improve shareholder value. A shortlist of six banks has been drawn up, with a final decision expected to be delivered by year end. The lists comprises Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Warburg Dillon Read. According to bankers there is no evident frontrunner.

The dollar debt markets were considerably more lively this week than many traders previously thought likely, raising the possibility that December will be reasonably active. Far from being the languid slide into Y2K that was predicted only weeks ago, December kicked off with a busy week. Over $5bn of investment grade debt will have been priced in dollars this week. Investors are cash-rich and the dire prophesies of doom for the turn of the year are now viewed as almost certainly unfounded. Many New York syndicate bankers therefore see every reason why borrowers should bring debt now rather than later.

* Procter & Gamble Co Rating: Aa2/AA

Warburg Dillon Read continued its leveraged finance product hiring spree this week by taking on Chris Ryan from Lehman Brothers. Ryan will assume the position of global head of banking products, based in Stamford, Connecticut and will report to John Costas, global head of fixed income and treasury products.

Finland Joint arrangers Leonia Corporate Bank (books) and MeritaNordbanken (documentation and facility agent) have signed a Eu150m facility for Perlos Oyj.

* European Investment Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA

* Eurofima Rating: Aaa/AAA

Lead arranger Sumitomo has signed banks into the Eu400m EIB guarantee facility for Polish telecoms company Telekomunikacjia Polska Spolka Akcyna (TPSA). The deal has been one of the most striking syndicated loans from the emerging markets in 1999. Launched in July at Eu150m over five years, the deal offered a guarantee commission of 70bp. Arrangers were offered 40bp for commitments of Eu20m, while co-arrangers are offered 30bp for Eu10m.