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GLOBAL CO-ORDINATOR HSBC this week successfully completed the sale of its £400m convertible bond issue for National Grid, the UK electricity company. After marketing the stock to investors over the past few weeks, HSBC formally opened the book for the deal on Monday. The offer period was to have lasted five days, but the lead manager was able to close the orderbook early when it was already several times oversubscribed by high quality accounts.

THE US stockmarket rallied at the beginning of this week with the Dow Jones recording gains of nearly 250 points earlier on. Towards the middle of the week, however, the index fell about 30 points and continued to slip slightly yesterday (Thursday). With the earnings season looming, corporate results have been at the front of investors' minds. Although around 40% of companies have beaten analysts' estimates -- technology stocks have recorded some excellent quarterly results -- some larger companies, such as General Motors, have showed only average growth. The mediocre performance of such blue chips has dampened investor enthusiasm.

LEAD managers Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Creditanstalt are gearing up to launch what will be the third -- and first largely domestically targeted -- offering of shares in Hungarian oil company Mol. The two firms led the company's flotation in 1995, when shares were sold at Huf1,100, and also the second international offering last year when shares were sold on at Huf2,970 ($16-1/2).

India

* Abbey National Treasury Services

ITALY IS set to scrap the widely disliked queuing system for emerging market issuers in a move it hopes will bring greater flexibility and efficiency to the emerging market sector of the Eurolira market. Strong Italian demand for emerging market credits has attracted many Latin American borrowers to the lira market over the past few years and the current queuing system -- which allows only three borrowers to issue per month -- has resulted in a back log of issues stretching to June.

Argentina

PRICING targets on a number of impending Latin lira deals are being reconsidered, according to market participants, now that the Republic of Argentina's more attractively priced Euro and DM bond issues have cannibalised the Italian market. Colombia, the latest Latin sovereign to consider the lira market, is said to be on the verge of mandating JP Morgan and Chase for a five year debut in the sector.

ABN AMRO, Citibank, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank and Société Générale have won the mandate to arrange and underwrite a $1.5bn eight year term loan for Lukoil, Russia's largest oil company. The loan, which will be secured by export receivables pledged to a master trust established by Lukoil, will be repayable over six years following a grace period of two years.

Turkey

* Nomura International has been mandated to lead manage the second Euromarket offering by the Estonian capital Tallinn, expected to emerge for DM30m over a five year tenor. The Japanese securities house ran the books on the city's first international bond issue -- a DM60m 6% three year transaction priced to yield the equivalent of 175bp over Libor at launch in April 1996. By this week the issue had traded in to 60bp over Libor.