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PRICES on Kazakh Eurobonds held up strongly this week in the face of a surprise devaluation of the Kazakh tenge. On Tuesday the Kazakh authorities gave up their fight to support the currency; once allowed to float, the tenge slumped from last Friday's level of Kt88.3/$ to Kt150/$, before recovering to Kt112/$ yesterday (Thursday).

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LATIN AMERICAN issuers are racing back to international bond markets to take advantage of a sea change in investor sentiment to the region in recent weeks.

TOKYO Sowa Bank has postponed the ¥30bn bond that was to have been the first securitisation of Japanese residential mortgages. Bear Stearns had begun marketing the deal in February, but was unable to place all the bonds before investors started to close their books for the financial year end on March 31.

HITACHI Leasing Co, the oldest leasing company in Japan affiliated to a manufacturer, became the newest entrant to the country's asset backed market this week, with a ¥34.5bn domestic deal lead managed by IBJ Securities. HL Asset Funding Corp Series 1 is backed by some 2,335 equipment leases extended to 786 Japanese companies, worth a total of ¥41bn. IBJ split the senior portion, rated Aaa by Moody's, into 10 hard bullet tranches, maturing every six months from October 1999 to April 2004. (See bonds section for full details.)

IN THE WEEK of April 19, Banco Finantia and Banco Privado Português will launch an innovative secured borrowing by Globo Organizations, the Brazilian television company that is the fifth largest TV broadcaster in the world. Cayman Islands SPV Globo Europe Ltd will issue some Eu50m of unrated bonds with a three year expected and five year final maturity, likely priced at 300bp to 400bp over Euribor. The leads will hold roadshows in Portugal and Switzerland next week.

* JP Morgan will launch the second Euromarket securitisation for Australian non-bank mortgage lender RAMS Home Loans Pty Ltd on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. The $500m deal will have a structure very similar to that of RAMS' debut issue last September, which offered triple-A rated bonds with average lives of 2.7 and 5.3 years, and a soft bullet subordinated tranche rated low double-A. JP Morgan will reveal price guidance today (Friday).

Simple interest rate options may be valued using variants of the Black-Scholes approach.

Croatia: Tomislav Matic, executive adviser, Croatian ministry of finance

Want proof that a well articulated borrowing strategy can pay dividends? Then look no further than DePfa. One of the pioneers of the internationalisation of the Pfandbrief market, DePfa is now trying to distinguish itself from the crowd - and position its credit closer to the European agency peer group.

European Union officials watching the recent television coverage of Nato air strikes against Serbia could perhaps be forgiven for having momentary doubts about the wisdom of admitting states from central and eastern Europe into their cherished club.