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A Venezuelan bond mandate originally thought to have been awarded to JP Morgan has apparently been thrown up in the air again, following a finance ministry shake-up by president Hugo Chavez. Yesterday finance minister Maritza Izaguirre announced her widely expected resignation to return to the Inter-American Development Bank. Her departure comes just weeks after the ministry's financing team was sacked midway through its evaluation of about 30 bank bids for the sale of between $1.4bn and $2bn of global bonds.

Investor presentations in support of the Republic of Kazakhstan's debut euro offering begin next week. Starting in London on Monday the roadshow will move on to Frankfurt and Paris before ending on Friday (July 9) in Geneva. Launch of the likely Eu250m minimum size five year issue for the B1/B+/BB- rated central Asian sovereign, and its first foray into the international bond markets since October 1997, is scheduled for the week beginning July 12.

The Republic of Lithuania yesterday (Thursday) took advantage of favourable market conditions for emerging market borrowers to launch a Eu50m fungible increase to its Eu200m 8% March 29, 2004 euro bond. News that the US Federal Reserve had moved to a neutral bias on monetary policy, following a 25bp rate hike on Wednesday, provided fuel for an emerging market rally on Thursday morning in London.

The Central Bank of Tunisia this week awarded Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter the lead management role on a debut euro offering. The Baa3/BBB-/BBB- rated sovereign is set to launch a Eu250m seven to 10 year transaction, the first to be issued off a newly established Eu1bn Euro-MTN programme arranged by Merrill Lynch.

A Pemex-related project financing bond sale of $550m was shelved this week, along with plans by Jamaica to issue $250m in the US, as dollar markets remained difficult for Latin new issues. Market participants had hoped for a rebound in investor sentiment after the widely expected 25bp rate hike by the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday.

Slovak finance ministry officials are mulling a further increase to the Slovak Republic's debut euro offering. Jozef Trojak, head of the country's state treasury department, said this week the issue might be increased up to the maximum Eu500m level approved by the government earlier this year.

Leading Polish telco Telekommunikacja Polska Spolka Akcyna (TPSA) has sent out invitations to banks to bid for the lead management roles on a bond issue for launch in either the third or fourth quarter this year. With corporate Eurobond issuance from central and eastern Europe proving scarce this year, competition for the mandate is likely to be fierce.

THE SUPPLY of large, blue chip stocks from the German equity market is set to maintain momentum in the next six months as industrial consolidation continues. This week DaimlerChrysler announced its intention to spin off DASA, its aerospace division, in a stockmarket listing as part of its programme of streamlining its business and selling non-core assets.

Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter will this week reveal the structure of the combined equity and exchangeable bond offering in Clariant stock being sold by Hoechst.

SHARES in Deutsche Telekom staged a recovery this week to trade at Eu40.75 after heavy selling pressure on Friday - the final day of bookbuilding - forced the company's Eu10bn capital increase to be priced at Eu39.50. The shares were priced over the weekend in Frankfurt after a last-minute selling wave forced the share price down by more than 5% to below Eu40 in the last 30 minutes of extra trading on Friday.

n The Italian privatisation sale of stock in the Roman electricity utility, Acea, is progressing well with many investors coming in unusually early with firm orders for shares. Warburg Dillon Read and IMI are leading the deal. Local bankers say fund managers from usually reticent funds are bidding aggressively for stock. The shares are being marketed between Eu7.18 and Eu8.95 and the deal is likely to be priced toward the upper end of this range.

FORTIS' capital increase should reach a successful conclusion this weekend after global co-ordinator Warburg Dillon Read closed the books early on the Dutch/Belgian banking group's convertible bond this week. The bank is raising a mixture of convertible debt and straight equity. Although the group wanted to be flexible on the split between the two offerings, it plans to sell a total of 60m shares (with a 10m share greenshoe) with between 15m and 25m backing the bond and the remainder being sold as equity.