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The unique and record-breaking financing of Olivetti’s takeover bid for Telecom Italia continued to take shape this week as it was revealed that the planned $15bn bond issue for Tecnost would be a five year floater paying a spread of 150bp to 200bp over Libor.

VENEZUELAN oil company PDVSA is expected to go on the road next week with a $1bn structured offering similar to that launched by Pemex in February. The deal, underwritten by Goldman Sachs, will be split into multiple tranches and will be the second issue from a $6bn structured programme that PDVSA launched last year. The inaugural deal came in the first half of 1998, when PDVSA issued $1.8bn.

THE UNIQUE AND record-breaking financing of Olivetti's takeover bid for Telecom Italia continued to take shape this week as it was revealed that the planned $15bn bond issue for Tecnost would be a five year floater paying a spread of 150bp to 200bp over Libor.

Croatia Creditanstalt is arranging a $100m project finance deal for Croatian telecoms company VIP-net. The project should be supported by the export credit agencies of Austria and Sweden because VIP-net has delivery contracts with Siemens and Ericsson.

Bookrunners IBJ International and Banca IMI and joint lead Monte dei Paschi this week launched SPQR Funding, the first Italian collateralised debt obligation. The Eu257m transaction is backed by illiquid Italian bank bonds acquired by IMI, loans to Italian banks written by IBJ London and loans to Italian local authorities from IBJ Milan.

Barclays Capital this week launched the first securitisation of shared appreciation mortgages (SAMs) in the UK for over a year, with a £97.84m triple-A rated zero coupon bond. The 55 year deal, Millshaw SAMS No 1 Ltd, is backed by 3,253 first charge mortgages that Barclays originated between May and July 1998, specifically for this transaction. The loans have a maximum loan to value ratio (LTV) of 25%. Borrowers pay no interest, but when they sell their house, pay off the mortgage or die, they must surrender a share in the appreciation of the value of the property, calculated as three times the LTV.

Credit Suisse First Boston will price La Défense II plc today (Friday). The Eu174.151m deal is the second securitisation to finance sales of buildings by Vivendi to SITQ, the international investment arm of Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec. The transaction has been delayed by a week because of documentation difficulties relating to the swap.

Nine Spanish savings and cooperative banks this week launched one of the country's largest mortgage backed securities, with the Eu1.0517bn TDA 7 offering, lead managed by Crédit Agricole Indosuez, EBN Banco and Société Générale. For the last few years tax breaks have wooed Spain's middle class savers out of bank deposits and into mutual funds, leaving the banks short of liquidity. The funding squeeze has prompted an ever wider range of banks to securitise their mortgages - particularly since the Bank of Spain began accepting MBS as collateral for repo borrowings last summer.

When formulating investment strategies and assessing risk, traders and investors often make use of two quite different techniques: scenario analysis under specific market scenarios, and Monte Carlo simulation.

Korean company Halla Cement this week issued the largest international debt offering to emerge from Korea since the republic's $4bn transaction of April 1998. Using the capital markets as an exit for what was the second largest ever Korean bankruptcy, the deal may provide a template for future M&A financings from the country and the region. Lead manager Rothschild Inc is already far advanced on a second offering for Mando Machinery, the flagship company of the collapsed Halla group.

Sydney Airports Corporation (SAC) completed one of the largest ever corporate bond offerings in the domestic Australian market this week, signalling a new stage of development away from traditional dominance by bank credits. Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Westpac were joint lead managers for an A$400m ($254m) five year deal due March 15, 2004. Priced at 99.873 with a 6.35% coupon, the A+ rated transaction came at 97bp over government bonds, equating to 52bp over swaps.

The Kingdom of Thailand has backed away from the launch of its long mooted global bond offering, pushing the prospective timetable for the deal back to the second half of the year. Ministry of Finance officials told Euroweek that an issue is not now likely before the end of June. "Funds received as a result of the Miyazawa plan have used up two thirds of our $2bn capital markets quota for the financial year," said one official.