Search results for

Chase Flemings, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney look set to launch the first deal of September, a $750m secondary offer for London listed mining group Billiton. The issue will finance half the cost of the $1.49bn acquisition of Alcoa's 56% interest in the Worsley alumina plant in Australia. Alumina is the intermediate stage in the production of aluminium.

* SAP Systems Integration (SAP SI) will announce a price range for its Neuer Markt IPO today (Friday), which is expected to raise about Eu170m. The company, formed three months ago by the integration of three companies in which SAP held stakes - SAP Solutions, SRS, and Sapse - will issue 9.533m shares, via Commerzbank and HypoVereinsbank. Of these, 4.8m will be new. The deal will dilute SAP's stake from 62% to 54%, although the software company is not selling any shares. Engineering and electronics group Siemens will reduce its holding from 16% to 7%, and Neuer Markt listed Software will also sell part of its stake, taking its holding down from 20% to 11%. The remaining shareholder, Achim Josefy, will retain a stake of about 2%, leaving 26% in freefloat.

Czech Republic Moody's has assigned a Baa1 long term foreign currency rating to the City of Brno.

ABN Amro Rothschild and Goldman Sachs have begun premarketing the postponed Eu400m-Eu500m IPO of Dutch company New Skies Satellites, which will list in Amsterdam and on Nasdaq. The issue was shelved earlier this year as comparable stocks nose-dived in the post-March technology stock sell-off. The IPO was at the time expected to raise between Eu400m and Eu600m. It is unclear if the IPO will have a secondary component, as had been expected originally.

* Tractebel Invest International BV

Market report:

Osterreichische Postsparkasse (PSK) has increased the ceiling off its euro2 billion ($1.8 billion) Euro-MTN programme to euro4 billion. The programme, arranged is UBS Warburg, it was signed in 1998.

* Commerzbank AG

According to bankers, Pohang Iron & Steel Co, the largest steel producer in the world, has asked several investment banks for proposals for an international bond issue. "Posco could have some extra financing requirements because of its acquisition of some equity in Nippon Steel," said one banker.

Northern Rock demonstrated the pricing advantages of reserve capital instruments (RCIs) over offshore tier one issues this week, when it priced its transaction inside higher rated tier one paper launched through more conventional SPV structures.

Northern Rock demonstrated the pricing advantages of reserve capital instruments (RCIs) over offshore tier one issues this week, when it priced its transaction inside higher rated tier one paper launched through more conventional SPV structures.

Sakura Capital Funding has added Deutsche Bank as dealer to its ¥500 billion ($4.67 billion) Euro-MTN programme. The programme was signed in 1996 and was arranged by Sakura Finance International. The programme has $2.75 billion outstanding off 24 issues.