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JP Morgan and SG are expected to launch a Eu5bn acquisition financing for Pernod Ricard in the next two weeks. The jumbo facility is expected to be just one of a number of large loans from France in the first quarter, promising a good start to the year. Diageo and Pernod Ricard finally won the protracted bidding contest for Seagram's spirits division at the end of December 2000. The two paid $8.15bn for the business.

Jackson National Life has started its 2001 funding campaign with a five-year $25 million trade and a six-year euro24 million ($23.49 million) deal. The five-year note is a floater that will be issued on January 17. The euro-denominated note pays interest annually and has a final coupon of 1.25%. Four other gics have already started issuing this year continuing the success of the sector in finding funds from the MTN market. Premier Funding International has issued a euro30 million FRN via Lehman Brothers and AIG SunAmerica has issued three notes, one in yen and two in US dollar.

Three European corporates have signed CP programmes via Goldman Sachs in the last two weeks. Allied Domecq signed a $2.5 billion global CP facility. The Euro-CP dealers are ABN Amro, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Royal Bank of Scotland, and the US CP dealers are Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. The issuer has already accessed the US CP market with a US CP programme, but now wants to branch out. Mark Holliday, treasury analyst at Allied Domecq, says: "We will retain a fair amount of issuance into the US, but will be looking at Europe now too. Where we issue exactly will depend on the direction of the company as a whole." The borrower hopes to begin issuing before the end of the first quarter. Goldman Sachs was also responsible for bringing Scandinavian Airlines System to the Euro-CP market. The $500 million facility was signed last month and has Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and SEB Debt Capital Markets on its dealer panel. And Syngenta, the world's largest agrochemical company, has signed a $2.5 billion global CP programme. It was formed in November 2000 from the merger of the agrochemical and seed businesses of Novartis and AstraZeneca, Goldman Sachs is the arranger and only dealer, but says that more dealers will be added within the next month.

Hansabank has dropped SEB Debt Capital Markets as a dealer off its $500 million debt issuance programme and replaced it with Swedbank. The programme was signed in October 1997 and has $153.54 outstanding off 3 trades.

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India

Kajima Corporation has added Kajima Asia Capital and Kajima Europe as issuers to its ¥150 billion ($1.32 billion) Euro-MTN shelf. Daiwa SBCM Europe, Fuji International and Tokyo-Mitsubishi have been added as dealers and Nippon Credit has been dropped.

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K2 Corporation jumped into the market straight away this year with a $25 million plain vanilla trade that matures in 2002. A member of K2 Corporation's treasury team said that they are very likely to issue again off the $6 billion Euro-MTN programme in the middle of this month. K2 Corporation issued 28 trades off the programme in 2000 and 22 of these trades were US dollar.

Korea Development Bank (KDB) is aiming to access either the international bond or loan market in the first quarter of the year to help meet its annual refinancing needs, according to a KDB official this week. The state owned policy bank has $2.45bn in debt maturing over the course of the year, and is interested in accessing the international market to help refinance its redemptions.

Landesbank Sachsen Girozentrale has opted for its third euro note in 2001 with a nine-year euro40 million ($37.17 million) trade that pays interest semi-annually and a final coupon of 5.03%. BNP Paribas is the lead dealer. It is the bank's only nine-year trade of 2000 and 2001 with 60% of the issuer's trades coming in the one to three year mark. The issuer's other two euro notes this year have been in the longer term, reaching out to 31 and 41 years.

Kommunalbanken has continued into the New Year with its penchant for yen with two 21-year yen notes. One was a ¥500 million ($4.4 million) note that pays a final single coupon of 5% and the other was a ¥600 million trade. Kristine Falkgard, head of foreign funding at Kommunalbanken, has been very happy with their euro2 billion ($1.86 billion) MTN facility since it was signed on 1 January 2000, particularly in terms of yen issuance. She says: "Japan is a very important market for us but my only regret is that we did not go out to Japan sooner than June 2000 to market our name."