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* BGB Finance Guarantor: Bankgesellschaft Berlin, Berliner Bank, LB Berlin

Sri Lanka Arranger ABN Amro will launch a $65m FRN credit for DFCC Bank in early August. The deal has been fully underwritten by ABN Amro for the top rated Sri Lankan borrower. The facility will have a 10 year bullet maturity. Principal repayment will be guaranteed by the Asian Development Bank. Interest payments are guaranteed by the government of Sri Lanka.

ITALY launched the first deal off its recently signed $8bn MTN programme this week, a £300m 30 year sterling issue designed to give the sovereign access to a new investor base ahead of European monetary union. The issue was lead managed by Barclays Capital with just HSBC joining as co-lead.

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Chile Lead arrangers Banco Santander, Dresdner Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland are finalising the term sheet for the $200m debt financing of the El Tesoro copper mine project. Syndication will be launched in August.

THE MALAYSIAN government's plan to provide Asia with a critical new bond market benchmark received a temporary blow yesterday (Thursday) after Moody's rating action against Japan spelt new trouble for Asian spreads. Malaysia decided to wait in the hope of improved market conditions in September, after Asian spreads widened by an average of around 25bp over the the day.

* Turkey's Akbank launched what is believed to be the first securitisation of American Express vouchers last Friday, with a $250m deal lead managed by Credit Suisse First Boston. The future flow deal parcelled Europay, MasterCard and Visa receivables along with payments from Amex, with which Akbank has an exclusive relationship in Turkey.

STERLING investors had their first chance to buy a securitisation of UK local authority obligations this week, as Paribas brought an £88m deal to refinance construction of a waste-to-energy plant in Birmingham.The transaction raised 20 year funds for Tyseley Waste Disposal Ltd, a project company which has a 25 year contract from Birmingham City Council to burn all its municipal rubbish.Tyseley Waste Disposal is owned by Onyx Environmental Management, one of the leading waste service providers to UK local authorities, which is an indirect but wholly owned subsidiary of French utilities giant Vivendi.The concession was signed in 1994, before the UK's private finance initiative (PFI) got underway, but formed part of the Conservative government's push to encourage local authorities to subcontract services to private sector companies.Hundreds of such deals were signed, but the Birmingham waste contract was unusual in that it involved construction of a new plant, creating a hefty demand for finance.Securitisation has been used for several project financings under the PFI including roads and hospitals, but this is the first deal where the obligor is a municipality, and could lead the way for other local authority concessionaires to borrow in the capital markets."Local authorities are the last frontier for the PFI, and this bond creates a template that the markets are happy with. It will probably be the first of many from the sector," said Lee Rochford, head

DEUTSCHE Bank and Banco Cisf brought the first securitisation of Portuguese assets to the bond market this week, as Banco Comercial Português parcelled over 33,000 consumer loans into DM435.1m of floating rate notes. "Our BIS ratio is 11%, so we are not under any capital pressure, but the deal will improve our return on equity," said Nuno Alves, senior manager at Banco Cisf, BCP's investment banking subsidiary.

Why is it when a hedge fund shorts stock its risk-adjusted performance includes its shorting activity, but when a pension fund lends a security its risk-adjusted performance typically does not include its securities lending activity?

JUMPING ahead of other Asian sovereign borrowers for the second time this year, the Philippines is set to return to the international debt markets by the beginning of next month with a fourth Libor/T-Bill pass-through note. The return of the sovereign via its issuing conduit, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), has been prompted by the impending maturity of its first innovative Libor/T-Bill note on August 14.