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SPRINT Capital Corp and Delphi Automotive Systems stole the limelight in the US corporate bond market this week with respective $3.5bn and $1.5bn blow-out global bonds that took advantage of a continued investor thirst for high yielding triple-B rated bonds. Demand for the Baa1/BBB+ rated Sprint Capital Corp bonds was such that underwriters Warburg Dillon Read and Salomon Smith Barney increased the size of the deal from $3bn to $3.5bn and priced all of the five, 10 and 20 year tranches at the tighter end of the spread range.

THE STEADY flow of new issues continued in the dollar market this week and, under this inexorable pressure, dollar swap spreads have waned. By Thursday, two year spreads were down to about 43bp, while five year spreads were at 61bp and 10 years were 71.25bp. These prices are at least 3bp tighter than at the end of last week. Short end spreads are now at -- or very close to -- the levels they held before the explosion in the credit markets at the end of last summer. At that end of the curve at least, spreads appear to be at the bottom of the trading range.

Lithuania Syndication of the Eu55m two tranche loan for Vilniaus Bankas has closed oversubscribed and the credit will be increased to Eu75m. It will be signed on May 5.

Brazil * Federative Republic of Brazil

Enthusiastic reception for Seat share offer INTERNATIONAL and local investors have greeted enthusiastically the sale of shares in Seat, the Italian yellow pages group. Global co-ordinator Lehman Brothers is in the final stages of bookbuilding and the shares will be priced over the weekend -- earlier than expected.

* Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd Rating: Aa3/AA-

GLOBAL co-ordinator Morgan Stanley Dean Witter has successfully executed the sale of stock in Spanish construction group Ferrovial and reopened the local primary equity market. Spanish companies have been slow to take advantage of this year's recovering continental stockmarkets, fearing that a market correction would erode the high valuations on the major bourses or that investors would only lean toward fashionable sectors.

* ABN Amro Bank NV Rating: Aa3/AA-

THE CITY of Florence is set to make its debut in the international markets via its newly signed $300m global MTN programme. The issue, dubbed 'renaissance bonds' in an allusion to new development projects and the city's rich cultural heritage, is yet to be finalised with its size dependent on the number of municipal projects it will eventually finance.

LONDON-BASED rating agency Fitch IBCA this week cut its investment grade BBB- rating for the Republic of Croatia to a speculative level BB+. It said: "After a number of years of robust growth, the economy has ground to a halt, placing the public finances and the banking and corporate sectors under severe pressure."

ASSICURAZIONE Generali, the Italian blue chip insurer, made a triumphant debut in the international bond markets this week with the launch of a sell-out Eu1.5bn jumbo bond. The deal, which refinances short term debt, achieves the twin objectives of improving the company's capital structure and diversifying its sources of funding.

German offers loom despite recent hiccups INTERNATIONAL investors are looking forward to a period of intense primary market activity on the Frankfurt stockmarket as many of the country's corporate and banking groups gear up to complete equity funding and divestments of secondary stock.