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THE UK cable company, Telewest, proved itself to be a shrewd observer of the markets by issuing a £300m convertible bond this week, taking advantage of record levels of demand for equity linked securities to retire some relatively expensive 9% and 10% bank debt. Telewest, which has seen its stock price soar in recent months, used its broker Dresdner Kleinwort Benson to sell the eight year bonds.

TEXAS UTILITIES is considering refinancing part of the European tranche portion of the $10.9bn of debt facilities it raised in 1998 to back the purchase of Eastern Group. According to observers, what is left of the £1.77bn acquisition facility (thought to be about £1.2bn) in the £3.625bn European portion will be refinanced.

JP Morgan will launch syndication of the £90m of senior debt backing the merger of Lloyd's List and IBC over the next couple of days. The loan has a maturity of five years and is rumoured to have a margin of about 75bp over Libor.

US Dollar Straights --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Fokus Bank AS Rating: A3

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VODAFONE is on the verge of mandating nine banks to arrange a record £9bn credit facility that will back its $62bn purchase of AirTouch of the US. Euroweek understands that the telecom company has asked banks to return to their credit committees for credit approval for a £1bn underwriting.

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Belgium Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and JP Morgan plan to wrap up general syndication of the Bfr24bn non-recourse facility financing the development of KPN Orange, Belgium's third cellular network, on February 10.

BAT's Eu1.7bn 10 year bullet offering this week was the largest single corporate issue denominated in euros. It was priced at 125bp over Bunds, or plus 130bp all-in. By yesterday (Thursday) evening in London, a final decision on the destination of the proceeds had not been taken, but it seemed that a "significant proportion" -- probably at least 50% -- would be swapped into fixed rate dollars, some would be swapped to floating sterling, with the remainder kept in euros, indicated a senior treasury spokesman at BAT.

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* Bank Austria AG Guarantor: City of Vienna