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South Africa Early reports indicate that general syndication of the $225m 364 day revolving credit for Standard Bank of South Africa is progressing well with German, Italian and Middle Eastern banks showing strong interest in the deal.

Alliance & Leicester will join the growing list of UK financial issuers in the euro sector next week when it launches a debut issue in the single currency. Alliance completes its roadshow presentations in Dublin today (Friday), having visited Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and London earlier in the week.

The Republic of Argentina was forced to shelve a $500m domestic debt swap this week after one of the country's presidential candidates wrought havoc in the local and international bond markets by announcing he would seek papal support for an Argentine debt moratorium.

ACQUISITIVE Swedish engineering group Atlas Copco is adding a $500m top-up transaction to its 1997 $1.5bn CP backup facility, as part of its financing strategy to take over US company Rental Service Corp. The facility is arranged by Citibank, Merrill Lynch and SEB, all joint books, with SEB as agent and doing documentation. They hope to sign up the syndicate by July 23. The acquisition will take place on July 29.

Australia Lead arrangers BA Australia, Crédit Agricole Indosuez Australia, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson Australia and HSBC this week closed general syndication for the A$750m two tranche deal for GPU Gas Net with an oversubscription.

Market commentary: Compiled by Glenn Blackley,

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter launched a Eu600m convertible bond for BBV targeted at both convertible and dedicated fixed income investors keen to buy substantial holdings of equity linked debt from one of Spain's best regarded banking groups. The convertible markets have been inundated with paper in the last few months and many investors are showing signs of fatigue.

The supply of primary equity from central Europe is set to pick up in the coming weeks, despite the corrections throughout the emerging stockmarkets of Europe, Asia and Latin America, as deals from issuers such as OTP, Netia and Mol prepare to hit the market. Concerns that the Republic of Argentina may struggle to meet its debt service obligations and news that one of the country's leading presidential candidates intended to seek a renegotiation of its outstanding debt sent emerging stockmarkets into a tail-spin this week.