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Comptoir des Entrepreneurs this week issued through its Vauban Mobilisations Garanties mortgage securitisation vehicle with a Eu300m increase to a Ffr1.1bn deal launched in November 1997, which matures in January 2003. Joint bookrunners Crédit Agricole Indosuez, CDC Marchés, Natexis Banques Populaires and Société Générale, with equal tickets, had little trouble placing the deal, which was snapped up by French funds.

A syndicate official at Merrill Lynch in London said this week that the bank's securitisation of contracts to build cruise ships for Alstom's French shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique had sold well to a mixture of European and US accounts. When the swap was fixed Cruise Ship Finance Ltd comprised Eu350m and $246.975m of bonds. Rated triple-B by all three agencies, the notes have an average life of 1.65 years, two year expected maturity and three year legal maturity. The dollar tranche was priced at 130bp over three month Libor and the euro piece at 125bp over, reflecting the effect of the basis swap.

Fiat SAVA SpA, the Italian finance arm of car manufacturer Fiat, launched its first securitisation this week - at Eu965m, the deal is by far the largest parcelling of auto loans in Europe. The transaction was arranged by Euro Capital Structures, the Dublin based securitisation boutique formed last summer as a joint venture between Fiat and UniCredito. The bonds were sold by Merrill Lynch, Schroder Salomon Smith Barney and UniCredit Banca Mobiliare.

Standard and Poor's last Friday unveiled a new 'financial enhancement rating' (FER) for insurance companies that guarantee bonds, to supplement its existing financial security rating (FSR). The rating agency is responding to the growth of financial guarantees in the capital markets provided by general insurance companies, as opposed to specialist monoline bond insurers.

Barclays Bank last Friday launched a $600m unleveraged synthetic securitisation to shed the credit risk on a portfolio of asset backed securities held on its books in New York, London and Tokyo. The deal, Nerva Ltd Series I, is the most public issue so far off a $5bn MTN programme called RF ALTS, after the bank's risk finance group, which manages it. The programme is intended to support a variety of risk transfer transactions.

The four principal U.S. banking regulators (the Federal Reserve Board, Office of Thrift Supervision, Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; collectively, the "Agencies") proposed on March 8 important changes to their risk-based capital standards that could affect the market for--and pricing of--securitizations and related credit derivatives.

e-Notes

A unique yen-denominated deal will be launched this month by a sovereign not normally known for breaking new ground in the Asian capital markets – Tunisia.

Expect a full Chinese IPO calendar following the US$4.92 billion flotation (US$5.65 billion after greenshoe) of China Unicom, the country's number two wireless carrier. The success of the IPO has helped to bolster the confidence of Chinese companies made nervous by recent lacklustre share offerings, but eager to build up financial resources ahead of China's imminent WTO entry.

The takeover of Cable & Wireless HKT will crown an astonishing first year for Internet company Pacific Century CyberWorks – and it sets some interesting financial precedents. Most significantly, it shows that a start-up can swallow an old economy business many times its size if the market values the former on what it might turn into rather than what it is now. It's a situation that gives great power to analysts; and this merger said plenty about them too. PCCW's managing director, deputy chairman and CFO are among those who state their case to Asiamoney in this special report. By Chris Wright.

Entry to the World Trade Organization changes the whole landscape of China banking. But initial rewards for foreign banks may not be from the expansion of commercial business on the mainland, rather the fees they will earn from helping Chinese banks to increase their capitalization. And why are they recapitalizing? To fight off other divisions of the very foreign banks who will gain from those fees. By Pauline Loong.

The takeover of Cable & Wireless HKT will crown an astonishing first year for Internet company Pacific Century CyberWorks – and it sets some interesting financial precedents. Most significantly, it shows that a start-up can swallow an old economy business many times its size if the market values the former on what it might turn into rather than what it is now. It's a situation that gives great power to analysts; and this merger said plenty about them too. PCCW's managing director, deputy chairman and CFO are among those who state their case to Asiamoney in this special report. By Chris Wright.