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The Asian technology sector received a boost on Nasdaq this week with the completion of Credit Suisse First Boston's $83m placement for City Telecom. Bankers also reported strong interest in Merrill Lynch's $475m IPO for I-Cable. Of the 115m shares in the City Telecom placement, 70m were new stock with the remainder sold by the company's controlling shareholder, Top Group. Given the strong performance of the stock since the deal, the 15m share greenshoe is likely to be exercised.

Hong Kong property company Chinese Estates Ltd this week launched its HK$1.821bn securitisation of the Windsor House building in Causeway Bay, lead managed by Société Générale. Chinese Estates will use the proceeds, together with other sources of finance, to repay a syndicated loan that falls due next March. "Securitisation provides the company with a much wider investor base than the bank market," said a capital markets official at SG in Hong Kong, "and the cost of funds is around 9.05%, which is quite a sexy price."

Hong Kong n Bank of China launched a $150m IPO for Chinese TV manufacturer PCL International Holdings in the Hong Kong market this week. The company - which is among the top three manufacturers in the country - is 100% owned by the government of Huizhou province

The Singapore dollar and Hong Kong dollar markets provided most of the local currency bond action this week in the absence of much international market activity. JP Morgan brought the first ever European corporate to the Singapore market with a S$100m issue for mobile phone giant Ericsson.

n Clerical Medical Finance plc Guarantor: Clerical Medical Investment Group Ltd

The European securitisation market showed its first signs of crumbling in the face of concerns about the Year 2000 computer bug this week, as two deals in the long dated fixed rate sterling sector were postponed until next year.

The European securitisation market showed its first signs of crumbling in the face of concerns about the Year 2000 computer bug this week, as two deals in the long dated fixed rate sterling sector were postponed until next year.

Dollar swap spreads tightened gradually in the course of a week characterised by very light flows. Business in the debt markets was equally enervating. By Thursday the 10 year mid-market in swaps was around 85.5bp, three basis points softer than a week earlier. Five year spreads traded around 68.5bp at the lows. The Bank of England and the European Central Bank announced rate hikes yesterday, of 50bp in the euro zone and 25bp in the UK, and with the non-farm payrolls data announced today (Friday) there were plenty of reasons for traders to do little this week.

n Dresdner Bank AG Rating: Aa3/AA/AA

FOLLOWING THE successful merger of Sweden's Telia and Norway's Telinor two weeks ago, the company has announced that some 20% of its equity capital will be sold in one of the largest IPOs of 2000. The deal is also likely to be one of the largest equity offerings to emerge from the Nordic region. The Nordic markets have produced little in the way of sizeable corporate issuance, relying instead on privatisations such as the sale of stock in Finland's national operator, Sonera.

THOMSON MULTIMEDIA became a publicly quoted company this week in one of the most successful of the French Trésor's privatisation sales. The sale involved the issue of 19,194,816 shares. Some 12,817,315 were fed to institutional markets with 6,377,501 marketed to retail investors and 2,063,524 allocated as an over-allotment option.

The Republic of Turkey enjoyed a blow-out success on its return to the dollar markets last Friday (October 29), with investors piling into its $500m five year global bond. A tightening of the yield on the 6% August 2004 Treasury on Friday morning to 5.95% meant the Turks were able to achieve the sub-12% nominal yield target which was a key prerequisite for the issue.