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UK catalogue retailer Great Universal Stores this week executed a £380m auto loan securitisation, as the second stage of a plan foreshadowed in February 1998 when the company bought its rival Argos for £1.67bn. "We put in a £1.6bn short term facility to finance the acquisition, and it was always our intention to refinance it at longer maturities," said David Bury, group treasurer and commercial director of GUS in London. "We have now refinanced half of it, and are talking to both the major rating agencies about an unsecured rating, with a view to accessing the European or American bond markets."

UK centralised lender The Paragon Group of Companies, the most prolific asset backed issuer in Europe over the last 13 years, this week inaugurated a revamped securitisation programme, designed to enhance its appeal to investors and shake off the last vestiges of association with the underwriting and delinquency problems that dogged the company in the early 1990s housing recession. JP Morgan lead managed a £185m mortgage deal, Paragon Mortgages No 1 Plc, that introduces a new asset specific branding for Paragon's deals. For the last two years the company has securitised mortgages, car loans and consumer loans through its Finance for People programme.

Westdeutsche Landesbank last Friday underwrote a Eu194m securitisation of hard currency revenues for Türkiye Halk Bankasi, and has begun syndicating the deal in the loan market. "We considered the bond market, but there is a huge pipeline of Turkish securitisations, which banks are finding difficult to sell," said Ulrich Kastner, a transactor in WestLB's asset backed and principal finance group in London.

Cabot Financial (Europe) Ltd, the UK based company that buys distressed consumer debt, this week closed its sixth and largest acquisition of charged off credit card debt. CFE bought a portfolio with a face value of £50m from a UK bank that is a leading credit card originator. The deal takes the total face value of CFE's assets to £85m - and the company has also recently concluded its first long term purchase agreement, under which it commits to buy from another bank a given amount of charged off credit card debt every month for a year.

The European Investment Bank this week took part in a securitisation for only the second time, funding the senior tranche of a Eu232m deal for Banca Italease, the leasing bank owned by over 30 of Italy's banche popolari. Like Italease's three previous securitisations, Iris No 4 was arranged by Paribas and Finanziaria Internazionale, the bank's securitisation partner in Italy.

Structured finance boutique Fredell & Co this week unveiled a new securitisation programme that will provide finance for Swedish residential property companies. The programme will ultimately be financed in the term ABS markets, but while it builds up collateral for each deal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce will provide senior finance through its D-1/P-1 rated conduit Great Lakes Funding Capital Corp, while Lehman Brothers warehouses the junior tranches.

THE BANCO Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has decided to forge ahead with plans to refinance up to $500m in bonds, although bankers say that the offering may not now be launched before the retirement of governor Gabriel Singson. The central bank had been keen to launch the transaction as a swansong for Singson, who steps down on July 4 to make way for Rafael Buenaventura.

SANWA Bank opened a new era in Japanese banking last Friday, with the country's first securitisation of residential mortgages. The Japanese mortgage market is huge - at ¥169tr ($1.46tr), by far the largest outside the US - and enthusiasts for securitisation are eagerly looking forward to the development of a thriving mortgage backed securities market.

A NEW name was added to the Singapore dollar bond market this week with an inaugural bond for insurance company John Hancock Global Funding. Led by Citicorp, the S$150m transaction was launched yesterday (Thursday) after the swap market had rebounded sufficiently to let the transaction through in difficult market conditions. Overseas Union Bank (OUB) was co-lead and Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCSB) co-managers. The 10 year, AA+ rated deal carried an annual coupon of 4.375% to yield 64bp over Singapore Government Securities (SGS).

RUSSELL Julius has returned to ING Barings after a stint of almost three years at Jardine Fleming, where he was co-head of Asian investment banking and head of Asian capital markets. He has been appointed managing director and head of equity capital markets worldwide, based in London. JF has appointed Alex Yule Smith, who has been with the firm since leaving Morgan Stanley in 1991, as Julius' replacement, although much of his position will be divided between existing Asia equity capital markets members Rupert Fane and Vincent Tong. Yule Smith is expected to concentrate on JF's EFIL-related business from Hong Kong, Tong on Greater China including Taiwan and Fane on the remainder of Asia.

TOTAL Access Communications (TAC) paid a high price to raise the $70m necessary to repay imminent debt this week. Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank postponed the placement last Friday, but armed with a wider discount, completed a slimmed sale on Tuesday. The banks approached the Singapore Stock Exchange for a waiver on the normal requirement that a discount of less than 10% be offered for the sale of new shares. The measure - used to protect existing shareholders - was discarded, largely because of the urgency of the situation, and a discount of 20% was set.

NOMURA launched two Japanese transactions to international investors this week. Kyoden raised Sfr50m in the convertible market while Saizeriya plans to complete a ¥25.6bn equity raising by the end of next week. Nomura's two previous Swiss franc convertibles set the backdrop for Kyoden, both having traded well.