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Rating: AAA Amount: Eu250m (fungible with three issues totalling Eu1.25bn launched 20/10/98, 21/01/99 and 12/07/99) Öffentlicher Pfandbrief series 858

n WestLB has set up a structured arbitrage group within its global structured finance division. The group will be led by Neil Robinson, an executive director, who joins from Rabobank. Simon Isbiter, joining as an executive director, and Nick Williams as a director will report to him. Both are joining from ABN Amro.

France Euroweek hears that Banque Nationale de Paris has won the mandate to arrange a deal for building materials company LaFarge.

BANK of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and Deutsche Bank have won the mandate to arrange a Eu600m five year revolver for Electricidade de Portugal (EdP). The facility is fully underwritten and will be used for general corporate purposes. It carries a margin of 15bp for the first three years and 17.5bp for the remaining two. There is a utilisation fee of 2.5bp if more than 50% is used, and a commitment fee of 50% of the margin.

China Arrangers Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (Hong Kong) have launched a $190m two tranche aircraft financing for Air China. Aside from underwriting the entire amount, the arrangers are also providing a guarantee.

Australia The A$313m term loan for Southern Cross Pipelines Australia will be syndicated by the end of the month. Arranger ANZ Investment Bank has sent information memoranda to eight banks.

Until recently, any bank seeking to raise deeply subordinated capital in size would have had little choice but to turn to the US market. The US, with its pool of credit-friendly investors, was the only sizeable source of funding for capital securities.

Barclays Capital this week launched a £137.4m bond, the largest yet to finance a hospital under the revived Private Finance Initiative (PFI). The bond structure builds on earlier hospital transactions, allowing participants to claim that if there is not yet a production line for capital market transactions from the sector, there is at least a viable template. "I do not think I would call it a cookie cutter, but there clearly have been efficiencies in that we apply some lessons across transactions," said Charles Silberstein, a managing director at the London office of FSA, the monoline insurer that gave the transaction a

Recent financial debacles have shown the limitations of traditional VaR models.

n The largest equity offering of the year from corporate Japan was launched by Nomura International on Monday, as roadshows began for fast growing cellular distributor Hikari Tsushin. The offering is scheduled for pricing around August 11. Hikari Tsushin is offering 1.25m primary shares and 1.2m secondary shares in a global sale, with an indicated price range encompassing a 2% to 4% discount.

The $1bn recapitalisation of Hanvit Bank staggered to a close this week after Korea's largest bank was forced to price its equity offering with the largest discount granted by an issuer from the country to date. The issue, led by Lehman Brothers, resurfaced unexpectedly on Monday - having been postponed last Friday - after the government agreed to waive its 10% discount ruling. This allowed the 92.75m unit deal to price with a 21% discount to spot, or a 25% discount to its original pricing date.

A trio of Filipino issuers suffered mixed fortunes this week as increasing volatility progressively undermined fragile market confidence. Although a debut high yield offering by Globe Telecommunications scored a much better than expected success last Friday and a re-financing by the Bangkok Sentral ng Pilipinas scraped home earlier this week, Manila Electric (Meralco) bowed to market reality yesterday (Thursday) with the postponement of its inaugural bond issue.