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THE ESTONIAN Compensation Fund (ECF) tapped the international bond markets for the first time this week, launching a DM30m two year floating rate note via Salomon Smith Barney. The transaction was priced to yield 110bp over three month Deutschmark Libor on an issue price of par. ECF bucked the trend of Estonian issuers fighting shy of bond issuance since the outbreak of spread volatility in emerging market debt at the end of October.

* Turkmenistan has become the second central Asian republic to secure an international credit rating. Moody's Investors Service awarded the country a B2 long term foreign currency rating this week. The decision ranks Turkmenistan two notches below its central Asian peer Kazakhstan, which Moody's rates Ba3 -- on a par with Pakistan and Peru, and one notch above Bulgaria.

* Crédit Local de France Rating: Aa1/AA+

Brazil * Brazil Synthetic Bond Co

* Merrill Lynch and Argentaria have launched the sale of stock in Spanish construction company Actividades de Construcción y Servicios (ACS). This is a secondary offering with existing shareholders selling stock to raise cash so they can take part in the company's rights issue. The international and domestic tranches total 14.183m shares while there is a greenshoe option of an additional 1.8m shares. ACS is already listed in Madrid and its shares were trading this week in a Pta3,620 to Pta3,650 range.

India Arrangers National Australia Bank and Sumitomo Bank (Hong Kong) have launched a $100m Australian dollar equivalent fundraising for Export-Import Bank of India.

BANKERS REPORTED a strong retail and institutional bid returning to the dollar market this week as investors selectively picked up bonds either on an asset swap or value basis. This considerable buying provided a much needed lightening of lead managers' heavy inventories, and created a much healthier new issue environment. Credit spreads in both the five and 10 year sectors have tightened by as much as 10bp, and swap spreads by 2bp.

SOCIETE GENERALE has begun marketing the IPO of French teleconferencing company Genesys, which is likely to be the last international offering from the country this year. The deal could raise up to Ffr200m with most of the proceeds accruing to the company. Some 1.186m ordinary shares are being offered to investors and Genesys plans to list its stock on the Nouveau Marché after the offering. In addition to the capital increase, shares are being sold by BNP, whose stake will fall from 35.5% to 16%. CDC will sell down from 26.7% to 12.3%, the stake of Worms & Cie will fall from 12.5% to 4.8%, GBG will cut its stake from 4.7% to 3.5% and the holding of Vertex will fall from 14.1% to 10.3%.

* Bayerische Landesbank Rating: Aaa/AAA

* Dresdner Finance BV Guarantor: Dresdner Bank AG

Argentina Arrangers Société Générale and Banco Supervielle Société Générale SA have completed syndication of the $130m five year loan-style FRN for Gas Argentino SA.