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THE IRISH government this week confirmed it will proceed with the privatisation of national carrier, Aer Lingus. The Ministry of Public Enterprise has been considering various divestment options over the past few months. But after the carrier's agreement to join a strategic alliance with American Airlines and British Airlways, the government office is likely to plump for an IPO. If an IPO is chosen as the preferred route, Aer Lingus will have a dual listing in Dublin and London, unlike Eircom, sold off in the summer, which was fully registered in the US for a big board listing.

THE IRISH government this week confirmed it will proceed with the privatisation of national carrier, Aer Lingus. The Ministry of Public Enterprise has been considering various divestment options over the past few months. But after the carrier's agreement to join a strategic alliance with American Airlines and British Airlways, the government office is likely to plump for an IPO. If an IPO is chosen as the preferred route, Aer Lingus will have a dual listing in Dublin and London, unlike Eircom, sold off in the summer, which was fully registered in the US for a big board listing.

KPN and its six arrangers - ABN Amro, JP Morgan, Citibank, Dresdner, ING, and Warburg Dillon Read - plan to wrap up the co-arranging phase of the Eu13bn credit backing its role in the acquisition of E-Plus of Germany on December 22. Co-arrangers have been offered 16.25bp on the final allocated underwriting and 27.5bp on final allocated participation, having been asked to initially underwrite Eu750m each.

KPN and its six arrangers - ABN Amro, JP Morgan, Citibank, Dresdner, ING, and Warburg Dillon Read - plan to wrap up the co-arranging phase of the Eu13bn credit backing its role in the acquisition of E-Plus of Germany on December 22. Co-arrangers have been offered 16.25bp on the final allocated underwriting and 27.5bp on final allocated participation, having been asked to initially underwrite Eu750m each.

Brazil BancBoston and Citibank are working on documentation for a $100m five year amortising loan for

Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, with Nabisco, has secured around £1.2bn of debt financing to back its proposed buy-out of United Biscuits. Chase Manhattan and DLJ are arranging the debt, of which the senior portions amount to between £770m and £795m. The rest is a £400m short term bridge loan that will be refinanced with a high yield bond, slated for launch in the first quarter of 2000 (see high yield bond story, page 3).

While the most melodramatic of millenarian fears have largely dissipated in the past few weeks, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the direction of rates and spreads in the new year and the great majority of US swap houses appear to be going into Y2K with flat positions. If there is a great deal of corporate issuance and much of it is unswapped, then spreads could spike up sharply as underwriters hedge unsold inventory with swaps. Fears of rate hikes could drive spreads higher as well and tempt end users to lock into fixed rate debt.

Egypt The $100m three year credit facility for Banque du Caire is fully subscribed according to arranger Sumitomo Bank. The arranger is still waiting on a couple of stragglers to build up an oversubscription.

* The Republic of Argentina may find accessing the dollar markets tough next year, given the fact that cross-over investors are less optimistic about the country's economic outlook than they are for other countries like Colombia, Mexico and even Brazil. Many cross-over investors are anchoring their decisions to extend Latin bond bets in strong economic fundamentals. Unfortunately for Argentina, it is still seen by many global fund managers as a country struggling to contain a fiscal deficit and meet large yearly funding requirements.

* Euro-MTS, the pan-European electronic trading platform for government bonds, has created a new division with the intention of listing high quality non-government bonds, starting with jumbo Pfandbriefe. The new division will be operational by early 2000. So far the only sub-sovereign bond to satisfy the strict criteria for qualification is the Eu5bn jumbo Pfandbrief for Allgemeine Hypothekenbank launched in late August.

Market report: Compiled by Glenn Blackley, RBC DS Global Markets, Australia. Tel: +61 2 9373 0431.