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ROBERT Fleming and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson will next week launch the sale of stock in SanLam, one of South Africa's premier life assurance groups, as part of its demutualisation. Despite the difficult global stockmarkets, investors are reported to be expressing keen interest in this deal.

Denmark ABN Amro, Citibank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi have launched general syndication of the $500m facility for Borealis, the Danish petrochemicals company. A bank meeting is scheduled for today (Friday).

MERRILL Lynch and Merita will next week launch the sale of stock in Sonera, the Finnish national telecommunications operator. The authority will meet its bankers this weekend to decide on the structure and size of the deal. "We have two conflicting messages from the market," said one banker in London. "We have seen Swisscom trade like any bull market privatisation and we have seen the French government postpone its offering of France Télécom."

* Swedish Export Credit Rating: Aa2/AA+

* European Investment Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA

STANDARD & POOR'S has stated that it does not believe the Russian crisis will have a significant impact on European banks. Their domestic profits, diversification of services and government support will allow them to absorb any emerging market losses. In Switzerland, Credit Suisse First Boston has total exposure of $2.16bn, net of provisions, but this compares with shareholder's equity of $21.3bn. German banks, particularly in the public sector, have a substantial exposure, but comparable support from the Länder.

* Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten Rating: Aaa/AAA

* Crédit Local de France Rating: Aa1/AA+

SWISSCOM'S IPO made its debut this week, defying instability in world stockmarkets to achieve exceptional premiums over their issue price. The shares ended yesterday (Thursday) at Sfr405.5, compared to the Sfr340 sale price. Global co-ordinators JP Morgan and Warburg Dillon Read priced and allocated the deal last weekend.

WELCOME Break Group, the UK's second largest operator of motorway service areas, is preparing to launch a tap of the ground breaking £321m securitisation that refinanced its LBO in August 1997. Bankers Trust, which lead managed Welcome Break Finance with BZW and Chase, roadshowed the £60m tap in London last Friday, and plans to price early in the week beginning October 19.

UBS LAUNCHED its Eisberg Finance leveraged collateralised loan obligation today (Thursday) at half the size it had originally planned, after marketing the double-B rated tranche for more than a month. Investors' flight to liquid, safe securities made the subordinated piece a difficult sale, and bookrunner Warburg Dillon Read made little progress in placing the tranche in the last two weeks.

* The European Union has amended its Solvency Directive, which governs bank regulation, to encourage central banks to risk weight some kinds of commercial mortgage backed securities at 50%. National regulators will be free to accord the weightings they wish, but the EU is keen to promote similar treatment across borders for securities with similar risk characteristics. The move follows resolution of a long running dispute between the Bank of England and Germany's Bundesaufsichtsamt für das Kreditwesen over risk weightings for MBS. On October 1 the BaK changed its 100% weighting for residential MBS to 50%, while the Bank of England will agree to grant 50% weightings to commercial MBS backed by German-style mortgages.