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The Korean bank recovery story took a turn for the worse this week with the postponement of Korea Exchange Bank's $1bn GDR recapitalisation issue. The Morgan Stanley Dean Witter-led deal had been hanging in the balance since launch following a steep decline in the underlying stock in the wake of the Daewoo Group crisis.

The Croatian government's sale of a strategic stake in the country's telco Hravtske Telekomunikacije (HT) reached a successful conclusion this week with Germany's Deutsche Telekom (DT) bidding $850m for a 35% share of the company, valuing it at $2.4bn. DT outbid its sole competitor, Nordic operator Telia/Telenor, which submitted a revised $641m offer.

Slovensky Plynarensky Priemysel (SPP) this week became the latest Slovakian entity to take advantage of positive investor sentiment towards the country by making a debut in the euro bond sector. The Ba1/BB+ (Moody's/Fitch IBCA) rated gas transit monopoly launched a Eu150m five year offering via Paribas on Thursday afternoon, following the European Central Bank's decision to leave eurozone interest rates unchanged.

n Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch have abandoned their marketing efforts for a planned Eu150m-Eu200m two or three year euro issue for the Republic of Romania in the face of widespread antipathy from investors in Europe and the US. The news has been greeted with little surprise by market participants, many of whom had long regarded the B3/B-/B- rated sovereign's chances of securing investor support as negligible.

The Republic of South Africa returned to the euro sector last Friday (October 1) with a Eu300m five year issue via Deutsche Bank and Warburg Dillon Read. Given the current shallowness of European investor demand for emerging market names, the borrower and its leads opted to launch the transaction - the first off the Baa3/BB+/BB rated sovereign's Deutsche Bank-arranged $2bn Euro-MTN programme - at the bottom end of the Eu300m-Eu500m indicated size range.

Poland's leading telecoms group TPSA this week began a series of European investor presentations ahead of arguably the most important bond offering from central and eastern Europe this quarter. TPSA officials and bankers from lead managers Deutsche Bank and Salomon Smith Barney have visited Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Milan, and will host a meeting in Madrid today (Friday). A final roadshow will be held in London on Monday, with launch expected shortly thereafter.

Ultrapar this week became the first Brazilian company since 1997 to launch an international initial public offering, but was forced to substantially cut its pricing to do so. Despite overwhelming opinion among investors and analysts that the chemical and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) company was one of the best equity stories out of the region, global coordinator Morgan Stanley Dean Witter had to cut initial price talk of $16 to $18 per ADS to $13.50 to $14.50 and price at $13.50.

The Republic of Argentina fought off a Moody's downgrade and returned to the dollar bond markets this week for the first time since April with a groundbreaking $1.5bn investment grade issue. The bond carried a World Bank guarantee that cut the country's headline borrowing costs by almost a third. The deal, led by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, was broken into six zero-coupon tranches of $250m each from one to five years, all of which were priced at the tight end of revised spread guidance.

Brazil has mandated Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan to underwrite a 10 year Brady bond exchange offer of at least $1bn, the latest in a fast growing list of emerging market sovereigns seeking to rid themselves of what is now considered to be the emerging markets' most unsightly asset class. The deal, led by JP Morgan and Chase and due for pricing in the week ahead, will be the first significant test of investor demand for a large, non-guaranteed Latin sovereign transaction in months.

The second stage of Rhône-Poulenc's divestment of its 67.3% stake in speciality chemicals group Rhodia began this week when Credit Suisse First Boston and Paribas launched a Eu1.1bn exchangeable bond into Rhodia shares. The launch of the exchangeable notes comes two weeks after Rhône-Poulenc began marketing a straight equity offering of up to 69.5m shares in Rhodia, representing 39.8% of its capital. The global institutional equity offer consists of 55.1m shares, with the French retail offer accounting for 6.12m shares and a greenshoe option covering a further 8.3m

UK transport group Stagecoach Holdings has launched its £400m capital-raising exercise, which will combine an open offer with an international equity offering. Roadshows began yesterday (Thursday) for the international offering to institutional investors and qualifying shareholders, with CSFB leading a five-strong syndicate.

German conglomerate Mannesmann this week posed the sternest test yet of the depth and maturity of the European convertible bond sector, launching a highly aggressive Eu2bn deal into a market where issuing conditions are far from favourable. Although the terms of the deal shocked some market participants, the jumbo bond was priced and allocated in the early hours of Friday morning - less than 48 hours after its launch - with all the signs indicating that the company and its bankers had pulled off an audacious piece of financing.