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THE HIGH profile jumbo £1.75bn project finance facility being arranged on fully underwritten basis for Orange by Chase Manhattan plc and JP Morgan Securities Ltd has entered the initial phase of the syndication process. The facility, one of the largest UK deals to be sought this year, is entering a far more cautious sub-underwriting market than has been the case for some years. The last few months have been littered with large deals poorly received at the initial underwriting phase -- among recent examples are Barking Power and NTL.

Egypt The National Bank of Egypt is on the verge of making its debut in the syndicated loan market for a $150m facility that will reset the country's pricing benchmark as well as push maturities out to five years.

NATWEST Markets is launching the jumbo standby revolving credit supporting its proposed $5bn plus ROSE II corporate loan securitisation programme. News of the bank's second loan securitisation, which follows last year's $5bn ROSE I securitisation has been anticipated by the market for some weeks.

Ghana The well supported and heavily oversubscribed $275m receivables backed trade finance facility being arranged for Cocobod by co-ordinating lead arranger Citibank International plc is to be signed on October 10 at the Savoy Hotel in London.

China The $65m two year pre-delivery facility for Air China has closed. Arranger Banque Nationale de Paris pledged $25m. Participants are WestLB (Hong Kong), Wing Lung Bank taking $15m each and Dresdner Bank AG (Beijing) absorbing $10m.

WESTPAC brought new groups of investors into the growing Australian mortgage backed market today, when it priced A$500m of mortgage backed notes. Progress 1997-1 Trust is the first Australian MBS to have three and five year bullet tranches; until now most of the product in the market has been in the form of pass-through bonds with a 10% clean-up call around the 10 year mark.

BAYERISCHE Vereinsbank privately placed $300m of Eurobonds on Tuesday, backed by shares in the FFTW-Freddie Mac Gold PC Mortgage Libor Fund, which is managed by Fischer Francis Tree & Watts. The deal, through special purpose vehicle American Mortgage Corporation, is aimed at tempting risk averse investors with short time horizons.

BANK Labouchère will today launch the first ever securitisation of share leasing contracts. The

NATWEST Markets will launch its $5bn+ Rose 2 securitisation as early as the end of next week. Like the October 1996 Rose 1 transaction, the deal will package up loans advanced to corporate customers by NatWest. "We have made it as close to the first deal as possible," said Andy Clapham, head of the securitisation group at NatWest Markets.

* The circa £1bn securitisation of residential mortgages for the Bradford & Bingley building society will be launched in the middle of October. The transaction, to be lead managed by NatWest Markets, will securitise part of the Mortgage Express portfolio acquired by the Bradford & Bingley earlier this year. * Sumitomo Bank's twin $2.5bn securitisations of European and US corporate loans are expected to appear early in 1998. An investment bank has been mandated in New York, and is liaising with Sumitomo in London, which is structuring the European issue -- it is not yet clear whether the two deals will be launched simultaneously.

NEW YORK CITY achieved its lowest cost of funds since 1972 with a $650m issue by the new Transitional Finance Authority in the domestic tax exempt market on Wednesday. NYTFA enjoys a statutory first right to the city's income and sales tax revenues, and is bankruptcy remote from both the city and New York State.

NOMURA will make its first exit from one of its principal finance ventures in November when its securitises a portfolio of around 1,100 UK pubs. The securitisation of the Phoenix Inns estate will come in a three tranche transaction. While few details are yet available, market sources said it seemed likely that the transaction will total between £210m and £220m.