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AN UNDISCLOSED Australian non-bank lender brought its third repackaging of corporate loans to the Euroyen market this week. Marcel Underwriting (No 1) Pty Ltd, a special purpose vehicle registered in Australia, sold ¥34bn of six year bullets through Sanwa International. All the bonds were preplaced.

SBC WARBURG Dillon Read and UBS have decided the structure of their merged securitisation teams, and they are expected to announce it in the middle of next week. Both banks declined to comment, but it is believed that Peter Shorthouse, head of securitisation at SBC Warburg, will be made head of European securitisation, but that there will be no global head. Fazel Ahmed, a relatively junior member of UBS's London securitisation group, will oversee business in Asia.

ST GEORGE Bank this week became the third Australian home lender to securitise mortgages in the Euromarkets. Deutsche Morgan Grenfell brought $500m of floaters for Crusade Eurotrust No 1 of 1998. The $496m of class 'A' notes, rated triple-A by Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch IBCA, came at 18bp over three month Libor with a 3.5 year average life.

CITIBANK returned to the Swiss franc market this week with a Sfr750m credit card deal led by Credit Suisse First Boston. Citibank Credit Card Master Trust Series 1998-4, rated triple-A by Moody's, Standard & Poor's, Duff & Phelps and Fitch IBCA, carries a coupon of 3.25%. The coupon switches to one month Libor flat if the bond is still outstanding after the expected maturity date of October 16, 2006.

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter successfully completed its $2.4bn Airplanes Group refinancing at the end of last week. The deal refinanced four tranches of the original $4.048bn 1996 securitisation of 229 aircraft leases for Ireland based GPA, extending the maturity of the debt and lowering the interest cost.

In common with many currencies, the Mexican peso used to be pegged to the dollar.

THE HONG Kong Mortgage Corporation (HKMC) will next week launch a HK$500m three year bond, the first from its note issuance programme, arranged by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). The issue will kick start a busy capital markets spree for the corporation that may propel it from almost nowhere to becoming one of the most important borrowers in the region.

ROADSHOWS for the jumbo international bond financing by the Republic of Korea have tentatively been scheduled for either the last week of March or first week in April. The move will allow the country to access the debt markets almost immediately after completion of the commercial bank debt exchange on April 8. Seoul-based bankers said that lead managers Goldman Sachs and Salomon Smith Barney received comments back from the US SEC on Friday, having filed a shelf registration last Tuesday. "Roadshows are still something of a moving target," said one banker, "but the intention is to go ahead in early April."

* The World Bank launched a HK$1bn fixed rate issue via HSBC Markets this week. With a three year maturity, the triple-A rated deal was priced at par with a quarterly coupon of 8.6% to yield 8.88%. With fees totalling 18.75bp, co-leads are Chase Manhattan Asia, China Development Finance Hong Kong, JP Morgan Asia, Merrill Lynch International, Oakreed Financial Services and Salomon Smith Barney. LAF eligibility is being applied for.

NOMURA Securities has announced plans to form a stockbroking and investment banking joint venture with Unit Trust of India (UTI), the country's largest fund manager. The Japanese securities firm will take a 40% stake in UTI's stockbroking arm, UTI Securities, at a cost of around $10m with the option to raise the stake to 49%.

NOMURA Securities Company broke new ground in Japan's domestic bond market this week with the launch this week of the first straight bond from a Japanese securities company. The AA JBRI rated group raised ¥100bn ($792m) via a seven year issue, which was priced at par on a semi-annual coupon of 2.275% equating to spread of 36.5bp over yen Libor or 66bp over JGBs.

MOODY's managing director of sovereign risk Vincent Truglia has responded to criticism of the agency's handling of the Asian crisis in an address published this week. In highlights of an speech at the Council of Foreign Relations last month, Truglia said Moody's feels strongly that it had given powerful and clear indications of the problems certain Asian nations were facing before anyone else. Thailand and Korea were singled out in particular. "In both cases especially in 1996 and early 1997," he said, "We were condemned roundly for not understanding Asia. Not only did the Thai and Korean governments attack us publicly -- indeed a senior Thai minister actually threatened us physically."