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ATTENTION shifted away from Russia to central and eastern Europe this week as the syndicated loan market took a step back to analyse the impact that the Russian crisis is having on the rest of the region. To most bankers, the impact is so severe that they have cut nearly all credit lines and postponed transactions that were unfortunate enough to be in the market.

Ghana Chase Manhattan has launched general syndication of the $250m corporate credit for Ashanti Goldfields Company.

China Three banks have joined Fujian Pacific Electric Co's $526.391m syndication for the Meizhou Wan Power Project as senior managers comprising Artesia Bank, DNIB Asia and Banco Exterior de España committing $10m each.

Australia ANZ Investment Bank is syndicating an A$100m acquisition financing for McKechnie Metals Pty.

ISMA, LCH pencil agreement

THE MINISTRY of Public Enterprise in Dublin has approved a preliminary plan put forward by the national carrier, Aer Lingus, to establish an alliance with a strategic industrial partner. This move will represent the first stage in the government's plan to privatise Aer Lingus and follows the authority's announcement that it would privatise Telecom Eireann.

SO WHO SHOT Noreen Harrington? We heard rumours that the famous Euromarket heroine had run out of road at Barclays Capital last Thursday as we were about to go to press.

MBNA International Bank, the UK subsidiary of US credit card issuer MBNA, launched its sixth securitisation this week, a £250m five year floater lead managed by Barclays Capital. "The deal went very well in a volatile market," said a syndicate official at Barclays in London. "At 15bp it would have been a blowout, but at 14bp, in the middle of price talk, the paper was still oversubscribed. MBNA is very responsible in the way it approaches the market -- it knows it will have to come back to the market, and prices to achieve good secondary market performance."

* Bankgesellschaft Berlin has executed the second tranche of the DM200m car, caravan and motorcycle loan securitisation programme it has arranged for Berlin based ABC Bank. The DM45m deal, known as German Car Loans No 2, was structured as a Schuldschein loan, with a public rating of AA from Duff & Phelps. BGB placed all but DM5m of the paper with Bremer Landesbank, Sparkasse Essen, Hamburger Sparkasse and DG Bank. Two more banks are interested in the remaining portion.

WARBURG Dillon Read is marketing the subordinated tranches of a leveraged collateralised loan obligation for parent bank UBS, in preparation for a full scale launch. Eisberg will issue $500m of paper, including $422.5m of rated bonds in three tranches, rated triple-A, single-A and double-B, and a first loss portion, which UBS will retain.

The Securities (Disclosure of Interests) Ordinance currently requires disclosure of 'interests' in shares in Hong Kong-listed companies by directors of the relevant company and by any other person with an interest representing 10% or more of any class of the company's issued share capital.

Hong Kong Standard & Poor's presented a dismal outlook for the Hong Kong economy this week, downgrading the Special Administrative Region from A+ to A with negative outlook.