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THE REPUBLIC of Colombia this week faced the embarrassment of becoming the only Latin sovereign to fall down the credit spectrum instead of moving up this year, when Standard & Poor's revised its outlook on the country and a number of its issuers this week. While affirming the republic's long term foreign currency BBB- rating, S&P said it had cut its outlook from positive to stable and said it had essentially discounted any prospect of an upgrade in the near term.

* L-Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

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THE UNITED Mexican States plans to become the first Latin sovereign issuer in Canadian dollars with a C$500m global bond due for launch in the next few weeks. The deal, mandated to Merrill Lynch and Scotia-McCleod, will be the first Canadian issue by any Latin borrower since Pemex's groundbreaking C$100m deal in 1993. The offering will roadshow in the week ahead, with pricing later in the month. Bankers not involved in the transaction suggested a launch spread of around 170bp over Canadian government bonds as the likely level.

ROSE Funding, NatWest Markets' corporate loan securitisation vehicle, brought its second jumbo deal yesterday (Thursday) to an enthusiastic reception from investors around the world. NatWest, via Repeat Offering Securitisation Entity Funding No 2, issued $5.5bn of dollar and sterling FRNs in 12 tranches, with a legal maturity in October 2004. Around half the deal, including both sterling and dollar notes, will be sold at closing into Rose Inc, NatWest's Delaware registered multiseller commercial paper conduit.

* Discover brought its second credit card securitisation of the year yesterday (Thursday) through Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, structured as an index amortising note. It is the first time the issuer has used this technique, and the first time that any index amortising transaction has been launched directly from a credit card master trust, rather than as a repackaging of credit card securities.

BANK Labôuchere's pioneering securitisation of share leasing contracts, LABS 1, roared off the books in 20 minutes on Friday, despite coming at an unpopular maturity for Dutch institutions. Lease Assets Backed Securities BV sold Dfl 400m of triple A rated 5% bonds maturing in January 2002. Dutch pension funds and insurance companies bought 70% of the 4 1/4 year paper, even though they normally invest at the seven to 10 year tenor.

* A widening in 10 year Deutschmark bond spreads this week could make the pricing of the Asian Development Bank's forthcoming European currency benchmark global transaction wider than expected. Comparable triple-A spreads moved out by three to four basis points this week, with price talk on the ADB deal moving from 8bp earlier in the week to 12bp yesterday (Thursday).

* Asian Infrastructure Fund Advisors Ltd (AIFAL) has appointed Ted Rule as its new managing director. Currently the head of the group's transport portfolio, Rule will assume day-to-day running of the Hong Kong-based office. AIFAL's founding managing director Will Liley will take a more active role in investor relations as company chairman. * Deutsche Morgan Grenfell revealed this week that it is to restructure its Asian equity operations, relocating over a dozen key staff from Singapore to Hong Kong.

THE CHINESE government has given permission for the first international bond offering by a pure corporate entity, underlining its commitment to allow state owned industries greater financial autonomy. Bao Shan Iron & Steel, an unlisted company that is one of the PRC's most efficient and high quality steel producers, has mandated JP Morgan for a $300m rule 144a issue.

THE KOREAN debt markets received some further measure of relief this week with the completion of a $463m three tranche offering for leading corporate Samsung Electronics. Following recent deals for the Korea Development Bank (KDB) and Export Import Bank of Korea (Kexim), the success of the US targeted deal underscored investors' willingness to pick up Korean paper provided the credit is right and the issuer is prepared to accept market reality.

TAIWAN'S majority state-owned development bank, Chiao Tung is preparing a first subordinated debt offering from the republic. With the international debt markets traditionally seeing very little activity out of the country because of restrictive withholding taxes, bankers said that the prospective US-targeted offering stands to set an important benchmark.