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ARRANGERS Banque Paribas, Citibank and HSBC have signed the highly successful £1.6bn term loan for Mercury One-2-One. The loan was fully subscribed in general syndication and the borrower has achieved its ambition of getting yet cheaper debt. The loan is for eight years and carries a margin at between 100bp and 30bp, according to a senior debt to operating cashflow ratio.

* Lehman Brothers this week completed a $300m bought deal of Munich Re shares on behalf of Fortis, the Belgian-Dutch financial services group which is trying to take over Générale de Banque of Belgium. The US firm was invited to pitch for the block in a competitive bid. Although the firm is not disclosing its purchase price, it placed the shares at DM859 which represents a tight 2.7% discount to the DM865 closing price of Munich Re shares in Frankfurt.

THE REPUBLIC of Venezuela is looking to raise up to $1.5bn more than it expected to this year due to the slump in oil prices. "Given the current oil prices and what that implies in terms of the fiscal deficit, we're talking about between $1bn and $1.5bn in new debt," said planning minister Teodoro Petkoff this week.

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THE FRENCH new issue market continues to provide buyers with attractive offerings to soak up the still strong levels of institutional liquidity. In addition to the $3.7bn sale of stock in Alstom, this week saw the successful $1bn spin-off of Rhodia, the specialty chemicals business which is being sold off by Rhône-Poulenc. The deal was highly successful and bucked a recent trend where lead managers were forced to give up some of the indicated price range to investors on a lower issue price.

Finland Deutsche Bank, Enskilda Debt Capital Markets and Merita are to close general syndication of the DM450m multicurrency revolving credit for Rauma Corporation, Rauma USA and Rauma Asia-Pacific over the next couple of days. The arrangers are waiting for a couple of banks that have not yet committed, but intend to do so.

* ING Bank London Amount: Rb600m OFZ linked notes

LEAD MANAGERS Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson have launched the flotation of Société Européenne des Satellites (SES). The company, which leases satellite capacity to broadcasters across Europe, started its roadshow this week -- giving investor presentations in the UK and Ireland in the early part of the week before moving on to continental European cities in the last two days.

MANNESMAN, the German industrial group, this week completed one of the most successful secondary offerings of the quarter. Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch executed the sale of stock, which took place via a DM3.3bn ($1.85bn) capital increase that was offered to retail and institutional shareholders. In common with many large, liquid secondary deals, the order book was a trim two times oversubscribed, although at an issue price of DM160, the market viewed the stock as well valued, and this fed through to the aftermarket.

WITH THREE of this year's jumbo privatisation sales completed, the Spanish market is to host a plethora of small to mid cap private companies coming to the market in the next two to six months. The Madrid bourse has been among the best performing of the continent's markets, and looks to be unaffected by the first signs of new issue fatigue which have been seen in other centres in recent weeks.