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* Grupo Jose de Mello, the private Portuguese group with interests in finance, insurance and food production, will sell up to 9.1m shares in Cia de Seguros Imperio on the Lisbon stock exchange. The deal will represent around 20% of the insurer's equity capital. Grupo Mello holds around 73.7% of Imperio through a variety of sub-holdings. Gan of France owns 10.2% and Imperio already has a free float of around 16.1% in Lisbon

* Bayerische Vereinsbank AG Rating: Aa2/AA+

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank will today launch a partly paid sterling bond to be led by HSBC Markets as bookrunner and PaineWebber as joint lead. The maturity will be five years and the spread 11bp over the Gilt. Some 25% of the deal will be paid now with the 75% balance settling in a year's time.

THE EIB is considering bringing a jumbo drachma transaction to the market next month. The issue may be between Dra30bn and Dra50bn in size. This would make it the largest transaction launched in the drachma market this year.

JP Morgan Securities Inc and NationsBanc Montgomery Securities LLC have arranged a $750m revolver for Cross Timbers Oil Co. Pricing for the five year loan is based on the amount outstanding under the loan.

THE US stockmarkets opened higher this week, lifted by better than expected first quarter results from blue chips like Disney, Microsoft and Proctor & Gamble By yesterday (Thursday), however, worries over rising interest rates and overseas markets prompted to a wave of selling that led to the Dow Jones closing down over 33 points. New issue activity is gathering momentum as the second quarter gets into gear and some companies that filed earlier this year or late last year finally come to the market; several deals were completed this week with mixed success.

DESPITE the recent dip in the Paris market, bankers are expecting a myriad of IPOs and secondary stock sales from small to medium cap companies to get a rapturous reception from investors. Local and international firms confirm that they have a large number of deals to execute in the next two months - in the main market and the nouveau marché - with small cap funds from the UK, Switzerland and Germany the strongest buyers of these shares.

PANAMA and Costa Rica's decision to postpone deals earlier this month finally paid off this week when both countries received a good reception from investors for their respective deals. Although Panama's $300m 10 year global bond came at a wider spread of 265bp over Treasuries, from a original price talk of 235bp to 240bp three weeks ago, lead manager Lehman Brothers was able to build a strong book of first time investment grade buyers of the sovereign's paper. The deal tightened in to around 260bp after launch.

* Deutsche Bank Finance Guarantor: Deutsche Bank

* Inter-American Development Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA

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DEFINING the HKMA's role at the forefront of the development of Hong Kong's increasingly sophisticated bond market, executive director Peter Pang outlines a five pronged approach. First, since the introduction of an Exchange Fund note issuance programme in 1990, the HKMA has built up a functioning yield curve for other borrowers to price off.