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BANQUE Nationale de Paris, Barclays, Royal Bank of Canada and WestLB have received a positive response from potential co-arrangers for the £400m multi-currency revolving credit for TI Group plc, the Oxfordshire-based engineering business. The borrower has become one of the more popular credits in the loan market over the past five years, making regular visits to the market, paying accurate margins and fees and responsibly maintaining its banking relationships.

ABN AMRO and JP Morgan have been mandated to arrange a Eu2.6bn acquisition facility for Royal Numico, the Netherlands-based producer of baby food and nutritional products. The jumbo credit will back Royal Numico's proposed acquisition of US-based GNC, the manufacturer and retailer of vitamins and food extracts.

BRITISH STEEL is on the verge of mandating a group of banks to arrange a jumbo credit of between £2bn and £2.5bn that will finance a £694m special dividend to shareholders as well as support its merger with Hoogovens, the Dutch steel maker. Frontrunners in the race to win the deal are ABN Amro, Citibank, Dresdner and HSBC. Also thought to be close to the deal - but will probably come into the deal as co-arrangers - are Deutsche, Chase, Greenwich NatWest and Lloyds-TSB.

BANQUE Nationale de Paris has closed syndication of the popular Eu100m multi-tranche, multicurrency credit for debut borrower Gemplus, one of the leading players in the smart card industry. The loan was well supported in syndication, a large oversubscription was achieved and the transaction raised to Eu150m.

Australia Arrangers BT Australia and ANZ Investment Bank have launched the A$180m seven year facility for Olex Cables. The loan pays a margin according to a matrix dependent on the borrower's total debt-to-Ebitda ratio and will range from 100bp to 225bp.

Ford Motor Credit brought a new dimension to the corporate bond market this week when it raised $7.5bn from the first deal off its new benchmark issuance programme. Dubbed GlobLS, these new securities are the first attempt by a corporate issuer to mirror the liquidity and transparency of issuance programmes from US agency issuers such as Fannie Mae.

Banca di Roma broke new ground in European structured finance this week by issuing a public securitisation backed entirely by non-performing loans. Italy's banks, burdened with some of the highest bad debt ratios in western Europe, have long looked to securitisation as a potential solution, but the legal impediments to asset backed finance in Italy have bulked large - the first securitisation of any kind by an Italian bank came only 13 months ago.

In a further sign of the growing maturity and variety of the Australian securitisation market, Commonwealth Bank of Australia this week launched the country's first synthetic collateralised loan obligation, transferring risk on a $1.5bn portfolio of credit exposure. Lead manager CBA will price Series 1999-1 Medallion Credit Linked Trust on Wednesday. The deal comprises A$92m of senior notes rated triple-A by Moody's and Standard & Poor's, A$46m of single-A notes, A$21m of low triple-B paper and an A$21m 'D' class, rated Ba3/BB.

The Bundesaufsichtsamt für das Kreditwesen, the German Federal Banking Supervisory Authority, recently issued what it believes is the final circular on the capital adequacy treatment of credit derivatives.

The Sri Lankan government is to make a final decision within the next few days over the choice of ratings adviser to its inaugural international bond offering. Having received 13 proposals, government officials have decided not to call for full presentations because the country is keen to get ratings advisory work underway as quickly as possible.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is to return to the international bond markets over the coming two weeks with a new benchmark transaction, following the completion of global roadshows which were wrapped up in Europe this week. Bankers said that although the supranational is looking at a number of different options, it favours a jumbo global yen offering swapped back into dollars. Said one banker: "A decision is only likely to be taken after treasury officials return to Manila early next week.

China A number of large share sales from China are lining up including those for Unicom, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) due for launch in the third and fourth quarters.