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THE FEDERATION of Malaysia made a rare and unexpectedly early appearance in the debt markets this week with its ¥74bn ($500m) securitisation backed by Japan's Ministry of Trade & Industry (MITI). Arranged by Nomura Securities Tokyo, the five year deal had an unusual and unique structure that posed the first test of investor responsiveness to the numerous credit enhanced and guaranteed deals likely to emerge from Asia next year.

Hong Kong 'H'-share Heilongjiang Agriculture faced a second listing hearing in front of the stock exchange of Hong Kong yesterday (Thursday), but as Euroweek went to press the outcome was not known. Global co-ordinator ING Barings is thought to be planning to launch the $200m issue early in January.

MERRILL Lynch Asia Pacific suffered a new wave of restructuring late last week with the loss of further senior staff including three senior directors and the reassignment of two more. Chief among the casualties were the bank's head of debt trading Stewart Booth who had only been drafted over from New York last February, head of derivatives marketing Stevan Lambert, credit derivatives trader David Page and Australian head of fixed income Keith Bailey.

THAI Airways (THAI) has chosen a consortium led by Credit Suisse First Boston as its adviser for privatisation next year. The other competing consortia for the role was led by Merrill Lynch and Warburg Dillon Read. The other members of the winning consortium are Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Jardine Fleming Thanakom and Asset Plus Securities. The group will be responsible for finding the best way to sell the government's stake in the flag carrier. "There will be an initial study phase to determine whether a market or trade sale would be most appropriate," said a banker.

INVESTORS' discriminating behaviour when it comes to Latin bond issues was demonstrated this week when two blue chip offerings were snapped up, while two Argentine corporates failed to get deals off the ground. Uruguay was able to add $50m to its November, $150m Chase-led issue of five year Eurobonds. The bonds were priced at 330bp, about a 10bp concession to secondary trading levels.

* Croatian pharmaceutical company Pliva is diversifying its funding sources with the establishment of a $100m Euro-commercial paper programme. The Euro-CP facility, arranged by Bank Austria Creditanstalt, is believed to be the first to be set up by a central and eastern European corporate. The programme allows for issuance in all major global funding currencies as well as Croatian kunas. Said one German banker: "This is an efficient and clever thing for Pliva to do as they don't have the funding needs to justify the cost involved in setting up an MTN programme, but a Euro-CP programme will still help them up their investor profile internationally."

OVERWHELMING investor interest in Pemex's $1.5bn and Telefónica del Perú's $150m asset backed deals this week has encouraged other Latin corporates to dust off shelved structured deals for offer in the new year. On Monday Pemex formally priced a $1.5bn four tranche oil receivables issue, including two MBIA wrapped portions, (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter joint books) which was followed on Wednesday by an even more tightly priced $150m debut issue by Telefónica del Perú (TdP), led by JP Morgan.

FOLLOWING months of speculation, South African Breweries (SAB) has confirmed it will seek a primary stockmarket listing in London. The company is to move its main listing from Johannesburg to the UK as part of its ambitious plans for international expansion. Robert Fleming and Cazenove will act as advisers to the company. Both firms have a long history in South Africa. Robert Fleming acted as lead manager with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson on last week's demutualisation of SanLam, where Cazenove acted as a co-manager.

THE NATIONAL Bank of Hungary this week returned to the fixed rate segment of the Euro-Deutschmark sector for the first time since 1995. The DM500m seven year offering was joint lead managed by Bayerische Landesbank and Deutsche Bank, which fought off stiff competition from Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Commerzbank to secure the eagerly awaited mandate. The Baa2/BBB-/BBB rated issue featured a 4.625% coupon to give a launch spread of 100bp over the 6.5% October 2005 Bund at the re-offer price of 99.81.

JOINT LEAD managers Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Warburg Dillon Read completed the flotation for Finland's Fortum yesterday (Thursday), raising some FIM5.6bn. The company was created in June to combine the operations of natural gas and electricity utility IVO and oil and chemicals state company Neste with the aim of creating a leading European energy group serving the Northern European market.

THIS week's sale of stock in Funespaña illustrated the strong demand which should lead to a busy start to the year in the Spanish equity market, when a wide variety of corporate offerings are expected, by pricing close to the top of its indicated range. Funespaña's flotation involved the sale of between 30% and 35% of the group's equity capital represented by 3,373,384 shares, with a mixture of primary shares and secondary stock.