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UK non-conforming mortgage lender Preferred Mortgages Ltd launched its second securitisation this week, a £100m deal lead managed by Greenwich NatWest. The deal's headline £51.75m 'A2' tranche, with an average life of 3.96 years, priced at 50bp over three month Libor, proving that spreads for the asset class are still rising, and vindicating Kensington Mortgage Co's decision to sell its seventh deal in euros last week.

International fund manager Invesco will today (Friday) launch a high yield bond investment trust on the London Stock Exchange that will use securitisation to achieve much higher leverage than is common in the UK. Royal Bank of Scotland has arranged an innovative seven year programme through its asset backed commercial paper conduit Loch Ness Ltd, rated A-1/P-1/D-1, that will provide the £30m closed-end fund with up to £45m of debt. Leveraged UK investment trusts typically carry debt worth only 25% to 50% of their equity.

UK bank Abbey National this week signalled that securitisation has become a central part of its funding and balance sheet management strategy, with the launch of its second £1bn mortgage backed security this year. Abbey sold a pilot £247.5m MBS in February 1998, and brought its first big deal a year later, but until now the bank has not stated that it would use securitisation regularly. This week, however, Abbey announced that it was considering funding up to £6bn of its £60bn mortgage book through securitisation.

Choosing the tenor for a hedge can be no easy task.

Nomura this week launched a ¥300tr 1.7m share offer for Aiful, aiming to replicate the success of its previous issue for the consumer finance company last April. Priced at ¥8,271, the shares now stand at ¥18,100. Of the total 1.7m shares in this issue, 1m will be offered to international investors. There is a 300,000 share greenshoe for the entire offer. Aiful has a 15.5% return on equity, compared to the Japanese average of 3% and existing investors have reacted well to the new share offer, said bankers.

The Republic of the Philippines continued to enhance its status as Asia's most sophisticated and prolific borrower with the launch this week of its most ambitious offering to date. With its exchange of Brady debt for new uncollateralised global bonds, the republic should further distance itself from the ranks of stigmatised debtor nations, ease its current fiscal burden and greatly increase the flexibility of its liability management.

The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation will issue its first mortgage backed security on October 22. Dao Heng Bank will sell HK$1bn of mortgages to special purpose vehicle HKMC Funding Corp Number 1 Ltd, which will simultaneously issue HK$1bn of mortgage backed securities, guaranteed by the Corporation. Dao Heng will buy the entire issue and will be free to sell it in the secondary market, but is expected to retain the bonds at first.

Exchange Fund Investment's landmark $1bn to $2bn Hong Kong equity offering began pre-marketing this week with an institutional roadshow set to begin on October 25. The government will officially announce the new index product - thought to be called the tracker fund of Hong Kong - on Monday, launching a media blitz that will run through to the close of the deal on November 5 with listing on November 8.

Chartered Semiconductor's $425m ADR issue launched this week with a large attendance at the first roadshow and expectations of strong demand. Salomon Smith Barney is global co-ordinator for the dual Singapore and Nasdaq listing, which will involve the sale of 25m ADRs at a price between $16 and $18. There is a 3.75m ADR greenshoe.

The launch of China Telecom's (CT) combined equity and debt offering has moved closer following the formal announcement this week of its $6.4bn acquisition of three Mainland cellular operators in Fujian, Henan and Hainan provinces. The company confirmed its intention to launch a $500m five year debt issue, with concurrent debt and equity roadshows scheduled to start the week beginning October 18, and pricing of both offerings to be completed by the end of October. Moody's and Standard & Poor's have also released ratings, with the former placing the company two notches lower than the sovereign at Baa2 and S&P in line with its BBB sovereign ceiling.

n General Electric Capital Corp's ambitions to become the first international credit to access Thailand's domestic bond market appears on track despite prolonged regulatory debate over the merits of allowing in offshore borrowers. Having mandated Citicorp for a Bt4bn ($100m) offering and filing it with the Bank of Thailand, the group is hoping to launch the deal before year end. In line with normal practice in other markets, GECC had proposed using its offshore funding arm as the borrowing vehicle, but retaining proceeds in baht to finance its Thai operations.

n JB Were completed an accelerated bookbuilt A$204.5m deal for Lihir Gold this week. The sale followed last week's placement of 10% of the stock by Ven Gold. The new share sale this week represented roughly 15% of existing share capital. The shares were sold at A$1.45 - a 15% discount to Wednesday's close of A$1.67. The shares closed yesterday (Thursday) at A$1.46.