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The State of Israel broke new ground for the Middle East this week when it became the first sovereign from the region to tap the sterling bond market. In an opportunistic piece of financing the A3/A-/A- rated borrower raised £100m of 35 year money through a private placement solely lead managed by Warburg Dillon Read.

Brazil ABN Amro Bank NV, Bank of America and WestLB have been mandated to arrange a refinancing to replace the $1.75bn two year term loan for BellSouth Telecomunicaciones-Brazil (BCP) in March 1998. That deal was arranged by eight banks: Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Securities, ABN Amro Bank, BT Alex Brown, Chase Securities, Nationsbank, Wachovia Bank and WestLB.

* Brazil's Banco Braseg took advantage of a limited but continuous bid for Brazilian bank paper this week by issuing a $65m one year Eurobond led by Crédit Lyonnais. Braseg and other banks like Banco Safra and Brascan have been luring European retail investors into their deals in recent weeks by offering huge yields on very short dated paper.

Ireland's largest mortgage lender, Irish Life & Permanent Plc, securitised its domestic home loans for the first time this week, in a Eu600m deal that is the biggest securitisation of Irish assets. Before its merger with Irish Life earlier this year, Irish Permanent had taken its UK mortgage portfolio off balance sheet with a £400m securitisation arranged, like this week's deal, by Greenwich NatWest. Launched last November, Auburn Securities 1 parcelled loans originated by Capital Home Loans Ltd, a UK non-bank lender acquired by Irish Permanent in 1996.

Europe's growing municipal market is set to welcome yet another new name with the signing of a Eu500m Euro-MTN programme for the Italian region of Marche. Located in central Italy, Marche is a small but prosperous region which has until now fulfilled its financing needs in the domestic bank market.

Mannesmann sent European institutional investors reeling from the euro corporate bond market this week as its £19.8bn (Eu30bn) bid for Orange and likely move from an A2/A to a triple-B credit prompted a dramatic repricing of telecoms credits.

After falls in all the major US benchmarks last Friday, a broad rally lifted the markets this week, allowing some of the hottest offerings this year to get away in style. It was a busy week for both new and secondary offerings, with strong performers coming from a broad section of the market. The IPO from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was a resounding success early in the week, making its debut at the same time as the equally high profile World Wrestling Federation Entertainment.

LEAD ARRANGERS Chase Manhattan and Credit Suisse First Boston have raised an incredible $5bn in the syndication of the $2.4bn acquisition facility backing New Holland NV's acquisition of Case of the US. Much of the success is due to the guarantee provided by Fiat. Banks have had little opportunity to lend to the Italian car manufacturer at margins over 20bp over the past five years. But, with the 364 facility paying 37.5bp over Libor out of the box, many lenders found it impossible to ignore the transaction.

? Global co-ordinator SG has launched the French government's sale of stock in Thomson Multimedia. The deal will raise around Eu400m and will involve the global offering of 21,105,486 ordinary shares. The sale will comprise mostly new shares sold by the government, with just under 2m new shares to be sold by the company.

Market commentary: Compiled by Glenn Blackley,

THE FLOTATION of Orange Partner Communications, the Israeli cellular business, has been launched to strong investor interest. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Warburg Dillon Read are running the deal and although salesmen in London are positive about the prospects for the transaction, some say that the £17bn purchase of Orange by Mannesmann has complicated the deal.

FRANCE Télécom is to sell its remaining stake in Panafon, its Greek telephone subsidiary. The group is co-owned by the French operator, Vodafone (with 55%) and Intracom (with 10%) and has a float of 15% established after last year's IPO. The group's $688.88m stockmarket debut was led by Warburg Dillon Read and involved the sale of stock at Dra5,100. Since then the shares have risen to Dra8,600.