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Last week we looked at alternative measures for risk measurement.

THE ASIAN Development Bank is premarketing a A$500m-plus Kangaroo bond which it hopes to launch within two weeks. Meanwhile, AMP Banking has mandated Westpac as lead manager for its domestic MTN programme. Investors have reacted positively to the ADB issue, prompting speculation that an issue could come as soon as next week. Warburg Dillon Read has been mandated as lead manager on the transaction, but officials at the bank declined to comment and said the issuer was merely considering accessing the domestic Aussie dollar market.

ONE YEAR after the Asian financial crisis began to break, the region's debt markets show little sign of recovery. This week, spreads on the bonds of the leading Asian issuers widened again. Deal flow for the rest of the year is expected to be severely limited. The irony that Russia's currency woes have induced the latest round of spread widening in Asian debt was not lost on the region's bankers -- Russia's own problems first came to light in the wake of the Asian contagion.

A PLACEMENT of Venture Manufacturing shares and the launch of an IPO for Chew Eu Hock (CEH) Holdings breathed life into a moribund Singapore share market this week. ING Barings placed 15m Venture Manufacturing shares from majority stakeholder Metchem Engineering, raising S$63.75m ($36.55). The shares were priced at S$4.25, a 1% discount to the five day average.

* Japan Development Bank launched its first international bond of 1998 this week when it issued ¥25bn of puttable bonds via Tokyo-Mitsubishi International. The 30 year bonds are puttable at years 10, 15, 20 and 25. The structure was used to give investors nervous about the state of the Japanese economy a defensive play. The bonds were all sold to institutions in Europe.

Australia * Colonial has completed an equity placement just three months after its last offering, with a A$264.4m ($155.8m) sale of 53.96m ordinary shares to fund its acquisition of Prudential Corporation's Australian and New Zealand businesses.

South Africa Arrangers ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank are looking for co-arranging banks to join the $117.227m two year L/C facility for Eskom.

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THE REPUBLIC of Argentina this week said it will wait until November if need be for markets to stabilise before issuing any more bonds internationally or locally. "We have announced that we will not be doing transactions internationally or locally while the markets are so unstable," Federico Molina, managing director of the Argentine national bureau of public credit told Euroweek.

China The underwriting group for New Century International Leasing Co's $260m four year equipment financing has been completed. A total of eight banks have joined mandated arrangers HSBC Investment Bank Asia and Hang Seng Finance, which underwrote $59m each.

Australia Deutsche Bank Australia is arranging a $40m eight year club loan for Western Bunkering Pty.