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POHANG Iron and Steel Corp (Posco), the world's largest steel manufacturer, took advantage of relatively quiet primary markets to launch its ¥35bn Samurai deal this week. The transaction was distributed to an extremely broad syndicate, due partially to the thin primary and secondary markets in Japan. But the transaction came in for criticism from some market sources for being priced too tightly, leaving it hard to place with investors.

THE UNITED World Chinese Commercial Bank (UWCCB) of Taiwan scored two firsts this week, launching its debut international bond deal and becoming the first Taiwanese debt issuer to tap the Hong Kong dollar debt market. The Taiwanese bank launched a HK$300m three year floating rate certificates of deposit (FRCD) issue, which was priced at par. Deutsche Bank was sole bookrunner and lead manager for the transaction. The senior unsecured deal will provide a coupon of 30bp over three month Hibor.

BANKERS in Tokyo are bracing themselves for the result of the NTT6 beauty parade. The ministry of finance will today (Friday) announce the domestic and international co-ordinators for the planned sale of 1m NTT shares owned by the government. The deal is due to launch in October. A key challenge for the banks that emerge as winners will be the marketing of the shares to the retail market. The NTT5 issue priced in November 1999 at ¥1.666m in more encouraging market conditions.

Absa Bank, via Merrill Lynch, has added R500m to the R750m 10 year non-call five subordinated debt issue it launched in February, boosting the fledgling South African corporate bond market. The original deal was the first South African private sector borrowing in the domestic bond market since the days of apartheid. Since then the market has grown significantly. Two of the other top five South African banks have launched issues: a R1.25bn offering from Standard Bank and a R500m 12 year subordinated debt deal from Investec.

South Africa

WITH most ECM bankers in holiday mode, new issuance has all but dried up. However, attention is turning to the autumn when a flurry of major deals is expected. Goldman Sachs and Den norske Bank may launch Telenor's Eu6bn-Eu8bn IPO as early as the third week of September, according to bankers. The stake to be sold by the government has not yet been set, but will be between 10% and 25%.

Asia * International Credit Recovery - Japan Two Ltd

Market report:

Australia Some A$2.8bn was made available for the acquisition of electricity utility Powercor Australia by Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (CKI) and Hongkong Electric Holdings (HKE) via a special purpose company of CKI and HKE.

We enjoyed the story on Bear Stearns in a recent copy of Bizzo Week written by Emily Thornton. She seemed to share our view that the Bear is a neat outfit, but what does it actually bring to the table for any prospective buyer? Who wants to pay four times book value to solve other people's clearing problems? Don't all hold up your hands at the same time. However, the eloquent Ms Thornton, who is no doubt the fairest of them all and bright as a button to boot, did not quite get her facts correct when she wrote that no European bank had ever succeeded in Wall Street.

Eyes in the swap market are turning increasingly to the immediate post-summer period, when several jumbo deals from telecoms companies are expected to be priced. Like the massive $14.6bn offering from Deutsche Telekom at the end of June, the impact of these transactions will perhaps be greatest in the basis swap market. British Telecom has played its hand very cagily so far, but in September it should offer up to $10bn, all in the dollar market. On July 28, the telco filed with the SEC to issue $10bn of debt.

Bank of America has increased the ceiling off its $15 billion Euro-MTN to $20 billion. The two issuers, Bank of America and Bank of America Corporation, have a debt capacity of $10 billion each off the programme. It was Bank of America's part of the ceiling which was raised from $5 billion to $10 billion. BA Asia and Goldman Sachs have been added as dealers. Merrill Lynch has been dropped as co-arranger, leaving Bank of America International as sole arranger.