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DEUTSCHE Bank and Goldman Sachs will shortly complete the sale of stock in Agfa-Gavaert, the photo-imaging subsidiary of Bayer. The sale is just one of a number of large IPOs and capital increases scheduled for the German market in the next few months. Although these large cap deals should attract a stronger response from investors than small to mid cap offerings, bankers report that even the large, liquid sales are far from easy.

LEAD MANAGER SG has successfully executed the privatisation sale of stock in Aérospatiale Matra, the French defence group. The bank priced the shares at Eu19.80 for institutional investors, at the top end of the expected price range. Retail buyers will pay Eu19.2. Both tranches were between 35 and 40 times oversubscribed by investors keen to buy a liquid stock in an under-represented industry. The issue price values Aérospatiale Matra at Ffr52bn (Eu7.93bn), in line with analysts' expectations.

Australia GPU Gas Net is raising a A$750m dual tranche loan to finance the acquisition of the Transmission Pipelines of Australia assets. Lead arrangers are BA Australia, Crédit Agricole Indosuez Australia, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson Australia and HSBC.

MORGAN STANLEY Dean Witter is to run the books on the flotation of Future Publishing, the UK magazine publisher started in 1985 with a £15,000 bank loan. The group plans to list its shares on the London Stock Exchange and raise £165m in new money. The IPO could value Future at around £500m - a price that would leave the vendors pocketing a substantial profit.

EGYPT's Ezz Steel will shortly test sentiment toward Middle Eastern markets, with a circa $100m GDR offering. Led by Merrill Lynch and EFG Hermes, the deal, including a London listing, will be launched at the start of June. It will be completed by the end of the month. Bankers active in Middle Eastern markets say the transaction may take place against a background of improved sentiment toward the region, with some buyers increasingly looking at investment opportunities. During 1998, several planned new issues from the region were pulled as investors recoiled from putting money into all but the bluest-chip companies from developed and liquid markets.

THE DANISH market will host two of its largest corporate IPOs this summer with the Dkr3bn ($430m) sale of stock in International Service System (ISS) via Aros Securities, and the $390m sale of bio-pharma group H Lundbeck via Goldman Sachs, Den Danske and Gudme Raaschou. These deals dwarf anything previously completed from the Danish private sector and will provide welcome liquidity for investors in the absence of supply from privatisations.

LEAD MANAGER Goldman Sachs is shortly to launch a bookbuilding programme for the flotation of shares in Charles Vögele, Switzerland's largest clothing retailer. The plans are to have a Sfr3bn ($1.97bn) valuation when it reaches the stockmarket toward the middle of next month. Investors this week had their first look at the company's preliminary prospectus. This reveals an indicated price range of between Sfr280 to Sfr350, putting the market capitalisation at between Sfr2.5bn and Sfr3.1bn.

GLOBAL co-ordinators Deutsche Bank and Enskilda are moving toward launch of the sale of stock in Perlos, the Finnish producer of plastic casings for mobile phones. The privately owned company is planning to make its debut on the Helsinki stockmarket in the second half of June and will offer international and local investors a free float of up to 49%. The two lead banks were mandated some time ago, after an extremely competitive beauty parade. They plan to launch the sale of Perlos shares during the week of June 7 and bookbuilding should lead to the release of an issue price during the third or fourth week of June.

CREDIT Suisse First Boston has launched the sale of stock in Matav, Hungary's national telecom operator, which will raise Huf88.2bn ($370m) through the sale of the government's 60m shares. The sale will be the largest equity offering from central Europe since Estonia Telecom's flotation at the start of the year.

* Lead manager Commerzbank scored a huge blow for the mid-cap sector of the German services industry this week with the launch of an IPO for Beate Uhse, Europe's leading retailer of sex goods, on to SMAX. Mid-cap corporate groups have largely been denied access to the equity capital market if they do not represent part of the country's high growth sectors or they choose not to obtain a Neuer Markt listing.

GERMANY's high growth Neuer Markt is set for its next stage of development following recent IPO tremors. After three weeks of correcting stock prices and many disappointing debuts by the country's hi-tech companies, the market looks in better shape. According to one specialist banker: "We have seen the end of the first phase of the Neuer Markt's growth.

BRAZIL's BNDES decided to pull its planned 10 year global bond this week after orders had failed to reach the $1bn threshold set by the Brazilian Development Bank when the offer period expired last Friday (May 21). BNDES and the lead manager of the exchange, Goldman Sachs, had asked holders of existing bonds in up to 90 Brazilian corporate issues - totalling more than $20bn - to swap these securities for new bonds via special purpose vehicle Brazilian Liquidity Transaction Co (BLT). The assets of this vehicle were to have been the tendered corporate bonds backed by a BNDES guarantee on interest payments.