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UK UTILITY United Utilities Plc underlined the growing US investor appetite for Yankee bonds from British-based companies this week with a $500m 10 year offering led by JP Morgan. The deal, launched at 89bp, is the latest in a string of UK-based utilities that have launched Yankee bonds in the past nine months. It comes just weeks after Cable & Wireless Communications blitzed the Yankee market with its $1.8bn multi-tranche deal, the largest UK deal yet.

THE US stockmarkets followed the pattern established in recent weeks, with both the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indices climbing steadily at the beginning of the week only to subside by Thursday as investors consolidated gains. Although many participants anticipated that the Dow would hit the 9,000 mark for the first time, other buyers appeared to be on the sidelines, taking stock of recent rises and the mid-April corporate reporting season.

VOLKSWAGEN and Allianz will shortly begin rights increases, signalling the largest and most concentrated increase in the supply of German stock yet. "The continuing performance of the local stock exchange has pushed these groups to take advantage of the maximum valuations which investors are attaching to their stock," commented one banker. "The current conditions should also allow these companies to attempt to shave off something on the discount offered to existing investors, although with many of these established groups, this principle would be very difficult to put into practice."

LEAD manager Beeson Gregory has completed the premarketing for the sale of stock in Granger Telecom. The flotation of the UK group, on which Aros Securities and Puilaetco are co-managers, will continue until the book closes today (Friday) when the shares will be priced before trading begins on the Easdaq stockmarket next week. The deal marks the first of many sales of stock in groups which operate ancillary services for the telecom industry -- with privately owned European companies keen to take advantage of the strong demand among international investors in the telecom sector.

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France Chase Manhattan, HSBC and Société Générale have launched syndication of the £500m credit facility for Lucas Varity. Syndication should be well supported. The deadline for commitments is in two weeks. Germany Commerzbank will launch syndication next week of its DM2bn facility for Metro AG. The loan refinances the DM2bn one year credit arranged by Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in December 1997. That loan supported Metro's acquisition of the cash-and-carry business of Makro.

THE Federative Republic of Brazil got caught in the Deutschmark deal crossfire this week when it launched its DM750m 10 year deal at the same time as Russia and Turkey issued more attractively priced offerings. Expecting Russia not to come to market after president Yeltsin's decision to fire his cabinet, Brazil on Tuesday launched its offering at a tight spread of 305bp over Bunds with a 10% coupon stepping down to 7% after 2000. The issue was led by ABN Amro and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson.