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The City of Palermo, the capital of Sicily, intends to visit the international bond markets early next year, following the assignment of its Aa3 rating by Moody's. Palermo now enjoys the same rating as Italy and is better rated than the Region of Sicily, which is rated A1 by Moody's. Palermo will become the fourth Italian city to make an appearance on the international stage, after Florence, Naples and Rome.

* Bayerische Handelsbank AG Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

* Bank Austria AG Guarantor: City of Vienna

South Africa Barclays (bookrunner and info memo), Fuji Bank (documentation, facility, publicity and signing agent) and RMB International (Dublin) have signed banks into the $100m revolver for Illovo Sugar.

US dollar swap spreads contracted precipitously on Thursday (yesterday) following the surprise news of the voluntary reform packages to be introduced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Ten year swap spreads closed on Wednesday at around 119.5bp over Treasuries, but by the end of trading yesterday they had contracted to around 114bp. This was some 8bp tighter than the intra-day wide of the week.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac scored a victory in their battle to head off legislation aimed at undermining their government links yesterday (Thursday), when plans by the two government sponsored agencies (GSEs) to subject themselves to greater transparency and scrutiny from the market place resulted in tightening of agency spreads.

Texaco and Chevron on Monday announced that they plan to merge their businesses. The combined company will be called ChevronTexaco and should emerge as the world's fourth largest publicly traded integrated oil and gas company with 11.1bn boe (barrel of oil equivalent) reserves, 2.7m boe per day of production (pro-forma) and a more diversified and global exploration and development portfolio. Standard & Poor's and Moody's have confirmed their ratings for Chevron - AA stable and Aa2 stable respectively. The two rating agencies placed Texaco, rated A+/A1, on review for a possible upgrade.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac scored a victory in their battle to head off legislation aimed at undermining their government links yesterday (Thursday), when plans by the two government sponsored agencies (GSEs) to subject themselves to greater transparency and scrutiny from the market place resulted in tightening of agency spreads.

ASB Bank has raised the limit on its $500 million Euro-CP shelf to $1 billion. The UBS Warburg arranged facility was signed in 1996.

Asia * HAN LSP (KDB) plc

Hong Kong The deadline for the HK$3.3bn, 15 year project financing for Hong Kong International Theme Park, arranged by Chase Manhattan Asia, is October 27.

Despite looking into the abyss on Wednesday, when stock markets looked set to plunge the financial world into a desperate October to match those of the Russian and Asian crises, fixed income players can look forward to the coming week with a hint of optimism. On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened sharply lower, hitting levels not reached since March 1999. Depressed by earnings warnings and missed forecasts from both old and new economy stocks, and few signs of peace in the Middle East, investors panicked.