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Salomon Smith Barney is today (Friday) to price the keenly awaited Yankee from the National Power Corporation of the Philippines (Napacor). The deal is set to emerge as a split tranche transaction likely to comprise 10 and 30 year tenors. Having said that it was hoping to raise a minimum of $250m, bankers said that the issue size may now be increased to as much as $500m with indicative spread talk narrowed down to 335bp to 350bp over Treasuries for the 10 year and 360bp to 375bp for the 30 year.

* Hong Kong's Airport Authority also announced plans this week for a debut HK$500m issue off its HKMA-established note issuance programme. With a five year maturity, the deal is expected to be launched on May 20, with spreads in line with comparable offerings by the Mass Transit Railway Corporation.

* Bangkok Bank (BBL), which completed a private placement raising over $1bn two weeks ago, could increase the size of the issue further, according to Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Some 440m shares were initially sold - 40m more than planned - but bankers say there is sufficient demand to sell the 30m share greenshoe in the light of the stock's strong trading performance.

The Kingdom of Thailand has invited up to a dozen European, southeast Asian and Japanese banks to submit proposals for its forthcoming global bond offering, aiming to complete beauty parades by the middle of May. Officials from the Fiscal Policy office and Ministry of Finance are now believed to be hoping to launch the prospective $1bn to $1.5bn issue earlier than initially indicated, with roadshows looking likely to begin during the last week of May. Thai experts commented that despite protestations from the government that a mandate has not been awarded to Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank has already begun preparing due diligence for the issue, allowing a fast track launch straight after the selection of either one or two other bookrunners.

ARRANGERS Barclays Capital, Citibank, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, JP Morgan, Lloyds Bank Capital Markets and Midland Bank have signed the $3bn credit facility for Bass Plc. Syndication, while not a complete blow-out, was successful. Indeed, given the size of the deal, its pricing and alleged lack of ancillary business on offer for the lower tier banks, most bankers have been impressed with the deal.

Asset backed securities: * Home Loan Invest-1

THE HONEYMOON PERIOD FOR CENTRAL and eastern European issuers in the international bond markets came to an abrupt halt at the end of October last year.

BRAZILIAN Development bank BNDES has vowed to follow a regular bookbuilding process with its planned $750m 10 year bond in a bid to improve the reputation of the Brazilian public sector as borrowers in the international markets. The bank this week announced that it had awarded Chase the mandate, but in a break from the past, it did so on the lowest fee bid, rather than on a competitive bid on launch spreads.

THE REPUBLIC OF UKRAINE IS THE most recent addition to the list of central and eastern European sovereign issuers in the international bond markets.