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* Daimler Benz North America this week brought its largest ever securitisation of vehicle loans, and the first since its merger with Chrysler. "This is a landmark deal for Daimler -- the largest ever mixed securitisation of car and truck loans," said Andrew Dym, managing director in global securitised finance at Chase Securities, joint bookrunner with Salomon Smith Barney. "With Treasuries rallying strongly and swap and credit spreads widening, this deal held together very well, thanks to Daimler-Benz's sought-after name, high quality assets and strong servicing operation."

AC FIORENTINA, the leading Italian football club owned by the Cecchi Gori Group, this week raised Lit67.5bn from a securitisation of its future ticket revenues through a deal arranged by Merrill Lynch. The transaction follows the template Merrill established with a Lit50bn deal for Lazio football club in October 1997 -- investors accept that the amortisation speed of the bond cannot be predicted accurately, but receive an attractive floating rate yield in compensation, and take comfort from the strength and historical stability of the underlying cashflows.

Suppose you own XYZ Company bonds.

THE JURONG Town Corporation (JTC) initiated the first stirrings of a semi-sovereign bond market in Singapore this week with the launch of a maiden S$300m public bond issue off its newly inaugurated S$4bn MTN programme. Together the programme and bond issue have set a number of firsts: the largest MTN programme in Singapore's history; the first bond issue by a Statutory Board to be listed on the Stock Exchange of Singapore and the first to be offered to the retail public -- who were allowed to purchase S$10m in paper with their Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings.

* ABN AMRO completed a Ps3.47bn ($87m) share placement in Bank of Philippines Islands this week. The 44.5m share deal represented a 5.5% sell-down by the Araneta family and was completed at Ps78 per share, representing an 8% discount to close. * Singaporean Internet service provider Pacific Internet (PacNet) is hoping to take advantage of the recent bull run of US internet-related stocks by becoming the second local company to list on Nasdaq.

JAPAN'S largest independent consumer finance company Nippon Shinpan launched a ¥49.8bn securitisation of shopping loans this week, sole managed by Goldman Sachs. "Nippon Shinpan has been a pioneer of securitisation in Japan -- the company realised early on that it was important to diversify its funding away from the banks," said a securitisation official at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo. "The benefits of securitisation are particularly clear now, when bank funding is much harder to obtain."

IN WHAT is being billed as the first true privatisation to emerge from Korea, roadshows for a $250m government sell down in Pohang Iron & Steel (Posco) will begin simultaneously in Hong Kong and Singapore on Monday. Led by Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney, the 3m share issue marks the first time the government has divested a stake directly via the international market place. Bankers said that following the completion of roadshows in Asia and Europe next week, and the US at the beginning of the week after, pricing is likely to take place on or slightly after December 8.

THE WORLD'S largest foundry manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has once again blazed a trail for the island republic in the international equity markets with the completion of a new $194m ADR offering. In contrast to every single other depositary receipt offering from Taiwan of the past two years, lead manager Goldman Sachs was able to achieve premium pricing for the 12.94m ADS issue completed last Friday.

SPECULATION that Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Smith Barney have been chosen as the new global co-ordinators for a government divestment in VSNL (Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd) has been dismissed by local bankers as premature. Although reports that the two US investment banks have beaten Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Jardine Fleming began to seep out this week, local bankers said that the government task force is unlikely to make its decision public for another at least another few days.

THE FIRST sizeable IPO to be completed from China since March closed oversubscribed this week, providing a welcome end of year boost for a market that has only recently been able to bear the resumption of secondary placements. The HK$700m ($90m) flotation of sanitary products manufacturer Hengan group was described by bankers as the first from the mainland to classify as neither a Red Chip nor an H-share. A privately owned enterprise registered in the Cayman Islands and consequently able to circumvent CSRC regulations, the company offered a total of 250m shares.

BAYERISCHE Hypo- und Vereinsbank will launch a DM1bn deal early next week that will be the first to benefit from the changes to tier one capital regulations announced by the BIS at the end of October. As a result of the new BIS regulations, HypoVereinsbank will be able to launch a dated, rather than a perpetual issue. Previously, dated issues have only been issued in the US market, where 30 year callable issues -- capital securities -- have been launched.

DESPITE THE Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday the primary market remained busy. The dollar and sterling sectors in particular continue to benefit from attractive absolute yields and spreads over governments for top quality issuers. The positive tone, unthinkable only weeks ago, was illustrated by the lack of performing issues as credit spreads remained stable. But the most emphatic demonstration that memories of the recent turmoil are quickly receding was the Dow's record-breaking performance on Monday when it reached its all-time high.