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AUSTRALIA'S St George Bank will launch its debut international securitisation at the start of next week with the sale of up between $450m and $500m of mortgage backed securities. Lead manager Deutsche Morgan Grenfell would not comment on pricing or the progress of the deal, but participants who attended one of the series of roadshows held this week described the transaction as well received.

MERRILL LYNCH completed the securitisation of a new class of asset this week when it priced the Lit475bn offering backed by the revenues of the film library revenues of Italian media group Cecchi Gori. Structured film-based transactions have been launched in the past -- such as for Walt Disney -- but these were participation bonds linked to revenues from movies yet to be replaced.

GREENWICH NatWest has fought off fierce competition to win the mandate for the first ever securitisation of UK student loans. After months of bidding, the contest boiled down to a straight fight between Greenwich NatWest and a joint Barclays Capital/Goldman Sachs bid.

MBNA has refined its Cards securitisation programme with the launch of the first ever fixed rate sterling asset backed by sterling receivables. The £237.5bn transaction for Cards 5 -- Chester Asset Receivables Dealings No5 -- was launched last Friday by lead manager JP Morgan.

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter launched a $2.4bn refinancing for the Airplanes Group yesterday (Thursday) after receiving SEC approval for the securitisation. Airplanes had been expected to return to the market -- it had a $850m 'A1' class tranche of its $4bn securitisation from March 1996 falling due on March 16 -- but the issuer has decided to take up the option to refinance other asset classes.

* US finance company GMAC has made a bold step into the UK mortgage market with the purchase of Birmingham Midshires Mortgage Services. GMAC will focus on providing non-standard mortgages, a growing sector of the UK market. The purchase was made through GMAC subsidiary Residential Funding Corporation, and the new company will trade as RFC Mortgage Services Ltd. RFC aims to generate business by developing links with mortgage originators --including the Birmingham Midshires itself -- as well as purchasing mortgage portfolios.

BANKERS TRUST will officially launch the £535m securitisation for Punch Taverns next week. The proceeds will be used to acquire the majority of the leased pub estate of UK brewer Bass, and will be the second such securitisation in the space of a few weeks .

The volatility swap can be viewed as a logical next step in the application of derivatives to portfolio management.

The Republic of Argentina's reputation in the international capital markets has been transformed in recent years. Structural reform has brought about impressive improvement in the country's economic fundamentals.

UK corporates have been regular and welcome issuers in the US Yankee market in recent years -- as evidenced by the blow-out reception to Cable & Wireless' $1.8bn offering in early March, the largest ever by a UK corporate issuer.

Nowhere has the growing innovation and diversity of the UK capital market been more evident in recent months than in the emergence of a viable high yield sterling bond market. The deal flow is picking up speed and bankers believe it is destined become one of the most vibrant high yield corporate debt sectors in Europe.

Want to buy something a little more exotic than usual plain vanilla paper? Then the Euro-MTN market is the place you will find it.