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RAILTRACK Plc has returned to the Euroloan market with a £1bn deal that will refinance its £2.35bn pre-privatisation capex facility that was lead arranged by Barlcays in 1996. Its latest foray is being arranged by Barclays, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, HSBC and JP Morgan.

A STRONG rally in the US markets early in the week made conditions more favourable for new offerings as investors returned to the market with renewed appetite after last week's lull. Salomon Smith Barney got off to a good start when it completed the IPO for consultancy firm The Corporate Executive Board on Monday. The bank priced the offering at $19, the top of its $17-$19 indicated range. A total of 8,187,200 shares were sold to investors -- 1.6m of those outside the US. All the stock was offered by existing shareholders.

Sweden Expect news next week of the winners of the mandate to arrange a Skr800m facility for Modern Times. Proceeds will be used to roll in existing facilities. However, part of the loan will be new money. Most bankers expect Nordbanken to be one of the arrangers.

LATIN Americans borrowers' hopes of issuing in the euro-denominated bond market suffered a setback this week when the Republic of Colombia postponed a Eu300m to Eu500m offering. Colombia and its lead managers, Paribas and Warburg Dillon Read, had been airing the idea of a five or seven year offering over the past few weeks, but found that even a hefty launch spread in the low to mid 600bp region was not enough to draw out investors.

THE SUPPLY of new equity from Nordic markets will increase in the next few months, with small and mid-cap firms adding to a list of the region's larger corporate and banking names. Local firms are set to pick up a number of the mandates, with Alfred Berg announcing two deals in the last week. The firm will run the books on the sale of shares in Kungsleden, the Swedish property group. The firm will raise around $100m from the flotation, which is due to take place in March.

* African Development Bank Rating: Aaa/AA+

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* Scottish & Southern Energy plc Rating: Aa3/A+

CSFB HAS completed the IPO for Agora SA, the Polish media group, with the book more than 15 times oversubscribed and dominated by high quality investors. At issue price Agora raised over $73m through the sale of 7,870,500 shares. Strong appetite for Agora stock overcame uncertain market conditions and allowed the lead to price the shares at Z36 ($9.30). The demand fed through into healthy aftermarket trading. The shares moved up to $12 on the first day, before settling around $11.

DOLLAR and euro swap spreads tightened in line with weaker government bond markets towards the end of the week. However, secondary corporate spreads have also contracted, so arbitrage possibilities have not been diminished drastically. On Thursday, dollar swap traders in New York spoke of the possibility of several new 10 year swap-driven global issues being priced early next week. European borrowers are also believed to be looking at longer dated issues (beyond 10 years) in the dollar market.

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter this week completed the sale of stock in Synstar, the computer services group, in the largest IPO in the UK market since last summer, when Goldman Sachs launched the sale of stock in Computacenter. The London market has not been receptive to IPOs in recent weeks, as shown by last week's pulling of the William Hill flotation, and salesmen say that domestic and continental European investors are becoming selective about which sectors they choose to buy.

Mexico * Nacional Financiera SNC (Grand Cayman)