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The Standard & Poor's downgrading of the People's Republic of China this week added a new twist to the sovereign's likely difficulties in successfully launching a new benchmark early in the autumn. Dropping the sovereign rating from BBB+ to BBB has also widened the agency's rating differential between the Mainland and Hong Kong to three notches.

Société Générale this week launched the first securitisation of Australian mortgages denominated in euros, and succeeded in expanding the investor base for the asset class. The Eu175m offering repackaged one tranche of a simultaneous domestic MBS issue by Residential Mortgage Acceptance Corp Ltd. Resimac is a mortgage financing vehicle set up in 1995 by FANMAC.

A deluge of China Telecom shares may be set to flood the market as the company gears up for a massive fundraising and some strategic investors look to offload their stakes. China Telecom is likely to raise up to $1bn in new equity as part of its $3bn-plus fundraising to finance the acquisition of three provincial mobile telephone networks.

Australia Reckon and Austar United Communications both made impressive debuts this week as Australia's love affair with telecom and internet stocks continued. Hutchison Telecom is also generating excitement among investors.

n ING Barings-BBL this week brought another new issuer to the Japanese securitisation market, parcelling 22,726 consumer instalment sales contracts for GC Corporation, a subsidiary of Promise Co, one of the larger listed finance companies in Japan.

Pemex this week demonstrated the attractions of asset backed securitisation over the international public bond markets for Latin new issues by placing $1.45bn of oil backed paper. The deal, while considered to be somewhat cheaper to investors than previous asset backed deals by Pemex, nonetheless provided far better pricing and size than the Mexican oil concern could achieve in the straight dollar bond market.

Argentina's debt raising plans were dealt another blow yesterday (Thursday) when Standard & Poor's reaffirmed its BB rating but downgraded the sovereign's outlook to negative from stable. Despite a flight to S&P's New York headquarters last week by Argentine under secretary of finance Miguel Kiguel, the rating agency decided to downgrade the sovereign's outlook because of doubts that the next president could pass much-needed reforms after the October elections.

Telkom, South Africa's leading telecommunications company, this week kicked off its 1999/2000 funding programme with a R1.5bn reopening of its R2bn 13% May 31, 2004 bond - known as the TL08 - via JP Morgan and Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank. The tap was launched on Wednesday following investor presentations in Cape Town and Johannesburg. It forms the first leg of a domestic funding programme which this year should see Telkom raise R6.5bn, of which around R5bn is set to come from bond issues.

The Central Bank of Tunisia opted to tough it out in last week's choppy new issue market and was ultimately rewarded with a well received, albeit modestly sized, debut euro bond. Lead managed by Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter on Friday (July 16), the issue featured a 7.5% coupon and 99.651 issue/fixed re-offer price to give a spread of 280bp over the July 2009 Bund and 269bp over the April 2009 OAT - equivalent to around 240bp over Euribor.

Investors are showing renewed interest in biotech stocks as the sector matures and profits increase. JP Morgan this week completed the IPO for one of the world's largest biotech companies, Genentech, raising $1.7bn. Swiss pharmaceuticals company Roche Holdings decided to float its Californian biotech subsidiary, having increased its holding in the company to 100% this June. Roche acquired a 70% stake in Genentech in 1990, and exercised a call option last month to purchase the remaining third of stock. Genentech originally went public in 1980.

Global co-ordinator Lehman Brothers is to reveal the price today (Friday) for the sale of stock in Versatel, the Dutch telecommunications group. With the deal benefiting from an outstanding response from institutional investors seeking to gain access to the Nasdaq/Amsterdam listed shares, buyers will likely be asked to pay the top end of the Eu8 to Eu10 indicated price range.

The sale of stock in Poland's high growth second tier telephone group, Netia, looks to be heading for a successful conclusion. Despite adverse press comment focusing on negative sentiment expressed by some potential investors, the book of demand is already twice covered with a week to go.