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SOCIÉTÉ Générale this week issued the second repackaging of Australian mortgage backed securities from its HOMES MTN programme in a search for ever better arbitrage. Home Owner Mortgage Enhanced Securities Ltd Series 98 came in two tranches, rated triple-A by Standard & Poor's in line with the underlying collateral. Both are callable at one year with a step up coupon to reassure investors of the soft bullet maturity.

THE £343m private placement for Capital and Income Group (CIT), reported in EW 358, has put securitisation on the London map -- literally. The second largest commercial property securitisation in Europe after 1997's Canary Wharf deal, the UBS-arranged transaction is backed by six landmark office buildings in central London. These include Sea Containers House, rented by the UK Customs and Excise and Sea Containers; Farringdon Court, occupied by Merrill Lynch, and British Telecom's headquarters at 120 High Holborn.

In a previous learning curve (DW, 1/5), we introduced a notion of convexity cost in the option adjusted valuation.

COUNTRYWIDE Corp Ltd (Hong Kong), the offshore funding vehicle of New Zealand's Countrywide Bank, has mandated UBS to arrange a $1bn Euro-MTN programme. Branch manager Mark Giulianotti told Euroweek that the A rated group -- which has launched two Euro-Asian bonds through its Hong Kong branch over the past two years -- had set up the programme to diversify its investor base further and facilitate a more opportunistic borrowing approach.

A BORROWING programme of around $3bn announced by the Philippine government this week has generated confusion among the Asian banking community, with few participants aware of any firm mandates or imminent launch dates. Under the terms outlined by Banco Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) governor Gabriel Singson, the republic is planning to source up to $3.4bn from a variety of capital markets and banking instruments.

THE HONG Kong Mortgage Corporation has bought mortgages worth HK$1bn in a tender competition open to its 14 affiliated banks. Dao Heng Bank, First Pacific Bank, International Bank of Asia and Orix Asia Ltd were successful in a competition which generated HK$2.45bn of offers.

INVESTOR conversion of utility company Huaneng Power International's (HPI) New York-listed 'N' shares into 'H' shares got off to a slow start despite the steady performance of the Hang Seng Index for much of the week. Although no figures for conversion were available, it was widely accepted that existing shareholders were adopting a wait and see attitude.

INVESTORS' reluctance to commit new money to Asian credits was highlighted this week by official confirmation from the Industrial Finance Corporation of Thailand (IFCT) that it will not be launching a $300m one year loan to cover the put option of its $500m credit sensitive Eurobond. The issue of whether a formal deal was ever on the cards divided market players.

THE $130m privatisation of India's Container Corporation (Concor) has been postponed until after the country's national elections, following problems in fixing an acceptable price. The government and its global co-ordinator JP Morgan had hoped to execute the disinvestment before the elections, which start on February 16 and end in March.

THE KOREA Development Bank (KDB) and Export Import Bank of Korea (Kexim), the country's two benchmark borrowers, have begun to firm up their fundraising requirements for 1998 in advance of Korea's planned sovereign borrowing. While both entities are presently constrained from new dollar fundraisings by a combination of the prospective sovereign deal and lingering negative sentiment, treasury officials from the two banks told Euroweek that each hopes to source up to $2bn in fresh money over 1998.

THE FEDERATION of Malaysia has backed off from plans to refinance a ¥30bn Samurai bond that falls due in March, after deciding that there would be too many competing Malaysian financings in the market. Although the government has officially said that it was only testing the waters for pricing proposals and never had concrete plans to launch a new yen bond, bankers said its final decision was prompted by the existence of competing deals from Tenaga Nasional Berhad and Telekom Malaysia.

A JOINT venture between Merrill Lynch and Fay Richwhite has been given the mandate to advise the New South Wales government on reforming its power sector. The government said the group would not be advising on an eventual sell-down of its power assets -- worth about A$25bn -- but after the reforms are complete a float is one step away.