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Poland's leading telecoms group TPSA this week began a series of European investor presentations ahead of arguably the most important bond offering from central and eastern Europe this quarter. TPSA officials and bankers from lead managers Deutsche Bank and Salomon Smith Barney have visited Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Milan, and will host a meeting in Madrid today (Friday). A final roadshow will be held in London on Monday, with launch expected shortly thereafter.

Ultrapar this week became the first Brazilian company since 1997 to launch an international initial public offering, but was forced to substantially cut its pricing to do so. Despite overwhelming opinion among investors and analysts that the chemical and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) company was one of the best equity stories out of the region, global coordinator Morgan Stanley Dean Witter had to cut initial price talk of $16 to $18 per ADS to $13.50 to $14.50 and price at $13.50.

SCOTTISH & NEWCASTLE has secured a stunning success in its bid to raise £1.55bn from the loan market to back its acquisition of the pubs, restaurants and budget hotels of Greenalls Group plc. Arranger Warburg Dillon Read launched the deal to 28 sub-underwriting co-arrangers in mid-September, offering banks a fee of 37.5bp for underwriting £125m.

The £175m five year revolver for global logistics company Ocean Group has been signed and increased to £225m. Deutsche Bank is the arranger. Participants are Allied Irish Banks, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, Banco di Napoli, Bank Austria Creditanstalt International, Bank of America, Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank, Citibank, Rabobank International, Crédit Lyonnais, Den Danske Bank, Fortis Bank, HSBC Bank, ING Bank, KBC Bank, Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz, Lloyds TSB Bank, National Australia Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Sanwa Bank and Westdeutsche Landesbank.

n Alliance & Leicester Group Treasury plc Guarantor: Alliance & Leicester plc

n Crédit Local de France Rating: Aa1/AA+

SG has wrapped up the co-arranging phase of Eu2.5m five year revolving credit for Vivendi. Despite initial concerns about the deal's terms - they were considered to be tight - appetite proved to be strong and a 20% oversubscription was achieved. Banks have been invited into the deal as either senior underwriting co-arrangers committing Eu250m with a final hold of Eu175m for a 7.5bp underwriting fee and 15bp participation fee, or co-arrangers committing Eu150m for a 12.5bp participation fee.

Bond markets were subdued this week, with market participants awaiting the results of the US FOMC, Bank of England and European Central Bank meetings. No changes to interest rates were announced, but both the Fed and the ECB announced a move towards a tightening bias. ECB president Wim Duisenberg said that he would need more evidence of a pick up in European inflationary pressures before tightening monetary policy. His comments, coming after a week of higher than expected European price and output figures, suggest that the market's bearish trend ahead of these data was overdone.

Belgium Market talk suggests that Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Salomon Smith Barney have won the competition to provide the senior debt backing the LBO of Plate Glass and Shatterprufe Industries from South African Breweries.

The Republic of Argentina fought off a Moody's downgrade and returned to the dollar bond markets this week for the first time since April with a groundbreaking $1.5bn investment grade issue. The bond carried a World Bank guarantee that cut the country's headline borrowing costs by almost a third. The deal, led by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, was broken into six zero-coupon tranches of $250m each from one to five years, all of which were priced at the tight end of revised spread guidance.

n Inter-American Development Bank Rating: Aaa/AAA