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Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Merrill Lynch this week launched a highly innovative tender for the distressed junior bank debt of Eurotunnel, the French-UK company that operates the Channel tunnel.

Croatia The $400m facility for The Republic of Croatia has closed. After a strong response from the market, the deal was heavily oversubscribed and increased from $250m

Germany has churned out its twelfth Euro-CP programme of the year. Dyckerhoff, the cement and concrete producer, will sign a euro500 million ($434.93 million) Euro-CP programme next week. It will be the fifth facility arranged by Dresdner Bank in 2000. Despite a slow Euro-CP market, Luis Rauch, group treasurer at Dyckerhoff, thinks the facility should be well received by the euro and dollar investors that he wants to target. He says: "Our A-2/P-2 ratings should give us the access we want. The ratings take account of our industry and there is no further event-risk for the investor." This is Dyckerhoff's first step into either the MTN or CP markets. It does not expect to issue up to the ceiling of the facility. Rauch says: "Dyckerhoff already has an established name in the long end, so we are now looking at short-term issuance which we will use opportunistically." The dealers are the arranger, ABN Amro, Bayersiche Landesbank, HypoVereinsbank, and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. It is the first Euro-CP dealership that HypoVereinsbank has been awarded this year.

The European Investment Bank once again failed to impress the investment banking community with its EARN programme, choosing timing, pricing and a bidding process which market participants considered ill advised. The Eu3bn 10 year EARN was awarded as a result of a competitive bidding contest among the bank's primary dealers. A spokesman for one of them described the process as a return to the bad old days of the Marchat era. "We were sent an e-mail during the week saying that the EIB wanted Eu3bn 10 years at Euribor minus 10bp/12bp and we were asked to sign on the dotted line. We thought those days were long gone."

Latin America's new issue market ground to a halt this week as volatile US equities and Middle East concerns hit the asset class. The only deal announced during the week was a Eu200m five year offering by Caracas based Supranational, Corporacion Andina de Fomento, which will begin roadshows on the week of October 23 via underwriters Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers.

Lebanon * Republic of Lebanon

* European Investment Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA

Gilles Martin will not be cashing in on the success on the food analysis company he founded when it completes its dual listing on the Neuer Markt at the end of this month. Although the Nouveau Marché-listed company, Eurofins Scinentific, is expected to raise about Eu40m with a secondary issue simultaneous with the listing, bankers had a tough job even persuading him to contribute to the greenshoe.

* Bayerische Landesbank Girozentrale Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

Lafarge, one of the world's top roofing and cement suppliers, has finally announced the details of its funding strategy. The French borrower is to sign a euro1.5 billion ($1.61 billion) Euro-MTN programme in the next two months. Deutsche Bank is the arranger, as first reported in MTNWeek, issue 117. Lafarge bought the British building group, Redland, in 1997 which originally had an MTN programme. The new programme is the second part of the group's strategy to help refinance its existing debt through equity and capital markets. Last year Lafarge launched a rights issue and a eurobond. The euro500 million bond was considered a success and has encouraged the borrower to set up a facility capable of continuous issuance. The choice of dealers off the programme hints at a belief that European houses provide the best coverage in Euroland. Jean-Marc Doucet, funding manager at Lafarge, says: "We hope the dealer panel, with five European banks and one American, will provide us with very good distribution in the core European area." The dealer panel contains the arranger, ABN Amro, Banque National de Paris, Paribas, Salomon Smith Barney and Warburg Dillon Read. All the banks have previously worked with Lafarge and Deutsche Bank in particular has lent to the group on a corporate basis. The programme will be operational by the end of May. The fact that Lafarge found Deutsche's reputation for structured products attractive is noteworthy. It is rated A by Standard & Poor's.

Leveraged buy-out specialists are watching anxiously for news of Finelist, which has gone into receivership. Finelist was put into the hands of receivers, with Ernst & Young appointed as administrator, following the discovery of financial irregularities within the company.