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Corporate issuers stepped up their assault on the euro market this week as investors' appetite for corporate paper overcame concerns over market volatility. With a range of diverse credits queuing up to tap European investors' new-found taste for risk, the deal flow should maintain a heady pace. But a hastily prepared and difficult Eu1bn 10 year transaction for Elf Aquitaine showed the dangers of taking the corporate bid for granted. Carrefour followed a more thorough route for a similarly dated and sized issue, and was rewarded with attractive funding and a warm reception.

The diversity of credits issuing in the euro bond markets continues to amaze investment bankers, as the pipeline of new issues in the booming new currency sector - which for the first two months of the year has overshadowed the dollar bond markets - reaches full to overflowing. Successful issues are no longer the certainty they sometimes appeared to be in previous weeks. Swap spreads have come in by 10bp to 15bp, and credit spreads by similar margins.

Croatia The debut deal for around $100m for telecoms company VIP-net from Croatia is being arranged and lead managed by the Vienna branch of Creditanstalt. The proceeds will be used to expand the company's network. VIP-net's main shareholder is Austrian telecoms company Mobilkom.

The European Investment Bank demonstrated its intention to be bracketed in the same class as Europe's leading sovereign borrowers this week when it launched its Euro Area Reference Notes (EARNs) programme for issuance of its benchmark euro denominated transactions. As revealed last week in Euroweek, the EARNs facility - arranged by ABN Amro and Paribas - will attempt to mirror the borrowing programmes of EU governments.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has launched the first issue off its newly established Ck30bn domestic MTN programme. Lead managed by Commerzbank Capital Markets (Eastern Europe), which also arranged the programme, the Ck3bn 10 year bond yielded the equivalent of 40bp through Pribor.

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Brazil * Banco ABN Amro SA

THE CITY of Prague has invited banks to submit bids for a Eu200m loan with the mandate to be awarded by the end of March. The city is the highest rated municipality in eastern Europe, standing at A- from Standard and Poor's. The deal is an important development for the region because there has been little activity so far this year.

* Santander International Ltd Guarantor: Banco de Santander SA de Crédito

* Anglo Irish Capital Funding Ltd Guarantor: Anglo Irish Bank Corp plc

BARCLAYS, (joint bookrunner and agent), Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, HSBC and JP Morgan (joint bookrunner), have launched syndication of the much anticipated £1bn multicurrency revolving credit for Railtrack Plc. The loan carries a margin of 32.5bp over Libor, a commitment fee of 15bp and a utilisation fee of 5bp that is applicable if 50% or more is drawn down.

DESPITE two weeks of successful premarketing, lead managers Warburg Dillon Read and BCH may be forced to postpone the sale of General Optica until after Easter. The Spanish stock exchange authority, the CNMV, is suffering from a combination of administrative backlog and a staffing shortage. Deal launches have been held up and international investors expecting a deluge of mid-cap and large cap deals from Madrid are likely to be disappointed.