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LEAD managers Deutsche Bank and Banco Cisf will next week begin bookbuilding for the Esc158bn ($940m) sale of stock in Portugal's partially privatised toll-motorway operator, Brisa. This will be the second stock offering in Brisa, which was floated last year, and is regarded as one of the most defensive deals to be launched in the fourth quarter. Having been floated at Esc4,850, the shares were trading this week at around Esc8,250. "Not only have they doubled in the past year but the company is not from an over-sold sector and has pretty visible earnings streams," said one analyst in Lisbon.

CANADA will launch its debut French franc issue today (Friday), in the form of a Ffr3bn April 2009 bond. Lead managed by JP Morgan and SG, the deal is expected to emerge at 18bp to 20bp over OATs.

CANADA will launch its debut French franc issue today (Friday), in the form of a Ffr3bn April 2009 bond. Lead managed by JP Morgan and SG, the deal is expected to emerge at 18bp to 20bp over OATs. "Market stability seems to have returned to the fixed income marketplace," said a Canadian government official. "It is now easier to contemplate a benchmark-type transaction.

THE WELCOME Break Group, which operates the UK's second largest chain of motorway service areas (MSAs), returned to the asset backed market this week with a £55m tap of the £321m securitisation that financed the company's MBO in August 1997. "We are delighted with the deal," said a syndicate official at sole manager Bankers Trust. "Since July the Euromarkets have been virtually closed to corporate borrowers rated below triple-A -- it is a testament to Welcome Break's business performance that it has attracted such strong interest."

DUTCH insurance and financial services group Stad Rotterdam Verzekeringen brought its second mortgage securitisation this week with a Dfl 600m deal led by Bear Stearns, De Nationale Investeringsbank and ING Barings-BBL. Like Stad Rotterdam's first deal of the same size, launched last December, Dutch MBS 98-1 gives the group term funding for its mortgages -- and the passthrough structure eliminates the originator's asset liability mismatch.

SPANISH banks Banco Popular, Banco Sabadell, Caja de Madrid and Ibercaja this week jointly launched the largest Spanish mortgage securitisation to date -- a Pta195bn ($1.4bn) deal lead managed by themselves, with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter as bookrunner. The issuing banks bought the bulk of the paper themselves to use as collateral for repo agreements with the Bank of Spain. The central bank announced in June that it would extend liquidity to banks only in the form of repos, but that it would accept triple-A rated Spanish MBS as collateral.

REVEALING its biggest ever six month loss of ¥205bn (£1bn), Nomura has announced it intends to streamline its operations, focusing on customer-driven business, and integrating its various banking divisions worldwide into a global entity. Among the units to figure in the shake-up will be Nomura International, which lost £289m, much of it attributable to trading positions in Russian and other emerging market bonds savaged by recent market volatility. The largest black hole, however, was formed by Nomura Holdings, the US operation which stumped up heavy losses on real estate and commercial mortgage backed securities holdings.

In June, the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued its Statement of Financial Accounting Standards number 133, titled accounting for derivative instruments and hedging activities.

COMMONWEALTH Bank of Australia yesterday (Thursday) launched a A$350m bond issue, providing a welcome tonic for Australia's domestic bond markets. It was first new transaction since the country's capital markets felt the full onslaught of global volatility at the beginning of October. The five year deal was well received by investors and was increased by A$100m. With total outstandings around A$3bn, CBA has become one of the largest domestic issuers -- surpassing smaller semi-state borrowers such as South Australia and Tasmania.

THE CHINESE government intends to honour forthcoming interest payments on Gitic's outstanding Yankee debt despite its abrupt closure of the group last week. While concerns have been growing that the republic might be heading towards its first international bond default, bankers connected to Gitic's two Yankee issues said that the State Administration for Foreign Exchange (Safe) had made its intentions fairly clear.

JAPAN Leasing Corp, which filed for protection from its creditors on September 27, will service its international securitisations, under an innovative arrangement put forward by Warburg Dillon Read. JLC is not being wound up, as widely believed, but reorganised, under the supervision of a preservation trustee appointed by the court. "The reorganisation is a de facto bankruptcy, but the preservation trustee is trying to get the company going again and may bring in a new equity holder," said a structured finance professional in Tokyo.

MERRILL Lynch all but closed down its fixed income operations in Asia this week, providing one of the most potent symbols yet of the depths to which the region's debt market has plummeted.