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AUTO company China Brilliance was expected to price its shares at the close of New York trade yesterday (Thursday) toward the end of a difficult week in Asian markets after Moody's announced a change in Japan's ratings outlook and Fed chief Alan Greenspan warned of the severity and depth of the regional crisis. Bankers said that the book was just covered but rivals expressed amazement that lead manager Merrill Lynch undertook the deal without a back-up buyer. Speculation circulating Hong Kong during the week that the parent company of China Brilliance was prepared to buy unsold shares was fiercely denied by those close to the deal.

LATIN banks moved quickly this week to tap small pockets of retail investor demand in the Eurobond markets to raise dollars, euros and lira. Unibanco, one of Brazil's biggest private commercial banks, took advantage of better market conditions earlier in the week to add Lit50bn to its Lit100bn two year 7.5% offering led by Chase on July 1.

COMPANIA de Alimentos Fargo this week offered US high yield investors one of the juiciest yields of any Latin corporate all year to secure a $120m 10 non-call five year bond issue it needed to refinance a bridge loan. The Argentinian corporate's offering, rated B1 and led by BT Alex Brown, carried a 13.25% coupon and a 775bp spread over Treasuries -- well over the 600bp level Argentine supermarket company Norte, its nearest comparable, was trading at the time.

RENEWED investor concerns over the economic and political challenges facing emerging market borrowers threatened to cast a pall over the launch of the Russian Federation's largest ever international bond this week. However, at a total issue size of $6.43bn -- more than three times the minimum amount targeted by the Russians -- the Goldman Sachs-led GKO exchange and new cash offering succeeded in its primary objective of easing the Ba1/B+/BB rated sovereign's short term liquidity problems, at least for the time being.

THE SLOVAK Republic has successfully completed the final stage of its $1bn Eurobond funding programme for 1998. This week it launched a second DM200m increase to the five year Deutschmark tranche of its multi-tranche, multi-currency offering launched in mid-May. Jointly lead managed by Commerzbank and Nomura, this new add-on featured an 8% coupon to yield 7.785% at a re-offer price of 100.79 to give a spread of 345bp over the Obl 6.75% due April 2003.

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BANKERS were predicting yesterday that the Republic of Venezuela would launch its long awaited $500m deal mandated to JP Morgan next week -- but not in the plain vanilla 20 year form initially proposed.Shell-shocked by its bonds' recent spread widening -- made worse this week by Moody's two notch downgrade to B1 -- Venezuela is considering either a shorter maturity of five or seven years or a structured 20 year deal with either a step-up or resettable coupon."If Venezuela does something it will be very quick, with no roadshow -- probably a conference call announcing a five or seven year or a structured note," said a syndicate manager.The Venezuelan government has been anxious to issue the deal before the end of July so that it can focus on raising an additional $2.1bn from supranationals and the international markets to help plug its fiscal gap. A wire service quoted an unnamed government official last week as saying that the roadshow for the offering would be held at the end of July.Neither JP Morgan nor the republic would comment yesterday. However, with the Venezuelan 2027 global bond trading around 715bp, from 554bp in mid-June and a 325bp launch spread a year ago the 20 year plain vanilla proposal could be altered."Doing a 20 year Venezuelan offering would be a very difficult deal to get done," said a banker at a rival firm. "We have been crushed here today," he added, referring to the sudden collapse of spreads on Thursday in the emerging markets after a brief rally earlier in the week when Russia's GKO exchangeable bond issue soared in price.Spreads widened about 20bp to 50bp across the board on Thursday and some bankers suggested that Venezuela would have to pay in the 800bp region for a 20 year new issue. A straight seven year would also carry a hefty spread. Spread differentials between 10 and 30 year bonds for Latin sovereigns is generally around 50bp, with Mexico's differential around 60bp. On that basis some bankers expect a Venezuelan seven year would come at 655bp or higher.A five, seven or 10 year bond would make more sense for Venezuela, however, because it does not have a liquid benchmark at any of these points on the curve.But JP Morgan could structure the 20 year bond to offer a resettable coupon, having witnessed the success of Pemex's recent monthly resetting coupon deal and similar offerings from BNDES and the Republic of Argentina. Venezuela has been inundated with proposed structured note issues from rival firms in recent weeks. In line with the Venezuela's downgrade, Moody's also cut the ratings of PDVSA, the oil concern, CANTV, the privatised telecom company and six Venezuelan banks -- Banco de Caracas, Banco del Caribe, Banco Mercantil, Banco Provincial, Banco Union and Banco de Venezuela. Moody's pointed to the government's inability to address the domestic implications of external oil shocks as the reason for the downgrade. The mini fiscal reform package announced by the government last week was cited as an example of poor policy response to lower oil prices.Brazil was said this week to be considering a re-opening of its global bonds due 2001 and Argentina, keen to pre-fund at least a full quarter of 1999, has also been standing ready for any window of opportunity. "If the market had stayed calm we would have seen Argentina in the market in the next week or two," said a syndicate manager in New York. *

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter triumphed this week with two of the largest stock offerings to come to the US market this year. The firm's success was all the more noteworthy as the markets took a serious nose-dive towards the end of the week. Market participants had expected the secondary offer of stock for Safeway to be a success. The food and drug retailer boasts impressive profits, a dominant market share in its sector and has no direct exposure to Asia. The company had already overcome an unfavourable market last December when it raised $1.4bn in a sale of stock from major shareholder Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

* The US leg of the roadshow for the share offering from Valeo kicked off yesterday (Thursday) following a week of presentations in Europe. Bankers said the response from investors at the roadshow for the Merrill Lynch and Société Générale led deal had been positive, especially regarding Valeo's acquisition of the car part unit of ITT Industries, for which the French company is raising capital.