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A SLIGHT tightening in swap spreads lightened the gloom marginally on Thursday but failed to alleviate the general despondency in the Eurodollar market. Comments of "melt-down" and "bloodbath" were on the lips of many market participants, with one leading syndicate head describing the dollar market as being in the worst state he had ever seen.

* Lead manager Smith Barney has launched a sale of stock for insurance group SAFECO Corp. The deal, valued at $518m, is expected to be priced early next week and is attracting strong interest from US and international investors. Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Fox-Pitt Kelton are co-lead managers. The stock is listed on Nasdaq and the shares were trading at $51 when the deal was announced. A total of 12m shares are being offered with 10m being targeted at US investors.

THE KINGDOM of Belgium announced plans this week to issue domestic bonds denominated in Deutschmarks and French francs in an attempt to promote wider international investor interest in its government market before monetary union. The two lines of linear bonds (OLOs) are likely to come to the market towards the end of this month or at the beginning of November, following an exhaustive selection process for the management group and an auction of Belgian franc denominated OLOs, with which the Deutschmark and French franc lines will become fungible after monetary union.

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Argentina The $210m capital markets bridge facility being arranged by JP Morgan and co-arranger BankBoston NA to fund Transener's purchase of the ESEBA fourth transmission line, was signed on Tuesday.

FRENCH welfare debt refinancing agency Cades -- the Caisse d'Amortissement de la Dette Sociale -- is to make an unexpected return to the syndicated loan market for a new jumbo Ffr60bn bank loan. The financing, which follows a similar, successful Ffr60bn inaugural financing early last year, is set to be a near replay of the 1996 facility.

* Westland/Utrecht Hypotheekbank NV Guarantor: ING Verzekeringen NV

* SNS Bank Nederland NV

Czech Republic Chase Manhattan plc and Citibank NA are in the final stages of wrapping up syndication of their $400m multicurrency revolving credit for EuroTel Prahia Spol sro. The punchily priced five years at 25bp over Libor loan has been modestly oversubscribed.

Brazil * Banco Votorantim

THE EGYPTIAN government has raised $94m through the sale of stock in paints and chemicals group Pachin, in a twice oversubscribed deal that reduced the state's stake from 72% to 42.9%. The final transaction was smaller than envisaged. Lead manager ING Barings had planned to sell 9m secondary shares, but the offer structure was subsequently reduced to 8m shares with a 1m greenshoe.