Search results for

SOCIÉTÉ Générale Australia this week revealed details of an innovative aircraft financing for Ansett Australia, a regional airline. Merrill Lynch privately placed $75.2bn of notes with four US investors -- the deal settled two weeks ago after the lead investor completed due diligence. "This is the first securitisation anywhere in the world which has produced highly rated securities for an unrated airline," said Greg Medcraft, head of SG's Asian securitisation group in Sydney. "Duff & Phelps deserve great credit -- they allowed us to break out of the traditional mould of aircraft securitisations."

ORIENT Corporation, one of Japan's leading independent finance companies, launched its fifth domestic securitisation of auto loans last Friday. DKB Securities brought a ¥30bn deal in seven tranches for special purpose vehicle Orico Asset Funding Japan. All the bonds were rated AAA by Standard & Poor's and R&I, on the strength of a ¥5bn subordinated tranche, retained by the issuer.

* ABN AMRO Bank has appointed Sergio A Lires Rial as its new chief executive officer for the Asia Pacific region, following the departure of Ton J de Boer. Having worked for the bank since 1986, Rial was most recently its country manager for Hong Kong and China.

POLSKIE LINIE Lotnicze LOT SA (LOT) is to be the first central and eastern European airline to tap the international bond markets, with a $100m five year FRN issue which will be lead managed by Bank Austria Creditanstalt. Investor presentations to support the debut transaction have been scheduled for Warsaw (June 22), Frankfurt and Zurich (June 23) and London (June 24), with launch expected shortly thereafter.

BRAZILIAN development bank BNDES is to launch a $750m 10 year structured note issue today (Friday) via Chase Manhattan, according to market sources. Chase refused to comment, but rival investment bankers said the deal was in the offing. It is expected to have a coupon that resets every six months off the Republic of Brazil's 10 year benchmark global bond maturing 2008. That bond is trading at around 470bp over Treasuries from a launch spread of 375bp in April.

THE Republic of Lebanon is pressing ahead with plans for its second Euromarket transaction this year, despite suffering a blow to its ratings this week. Yesterday (Thursday) Fitch IBCA cut its BB sovereign rating for Lebanon to BB-, citing the country's rising levels of debt which the agency said made it likely that Lebanon would lose its net creditor status by 2000.

THE ALREADY decimated Latin equity new issue market suffered another serious setback this week when Merrill Lynch shelved the long awaited $2bn issue of government shares in Brazilian privatised iron ore producer CVRD as well as a $210m offering by Argentine company CEI Citicorp Holdings. The CVRD deal, slated for filing with the US SEC this week, may not surface until 1999, while the CEI deal, scheduled for pricing on Tuesday, is shelved indefinitely.

LEAD managers Credit Suisse First Boston and JP Morgan will today (Friday) complete the roadshow supporting the Republic of South Africa's debut euro denominated offering -- set to be the first transaction in the single European currency by an African issuer. Following presentations in Milan, Zurich, Luxembourg, Frankfurt and Paris earlier in the week, the final leg will be held in London.

THE Slovak Republic is looking to increase the Deutschmark portion of its Nomura-led $750m multi-tranche, multi-currency financing package, possibly as early as today (Friday). Expectations are of a DM200m add-on to the outstanding DM600m 8% five year Deutschmark tranche -- which at launch in mid-May was widely acknow-ledged as the most successful element of the entire funding exercise.

SBC WARBURG Dillon Read has been mandated to advise and lead manage the sale of stock in Panafon, the leading Greek mobile telephone company. According to Athens-based analysts, the deal could raise between $600m and $1bn. At that size the flotation would represent the largest sale of corporate equity yet in Greece.

A NUMBER of potential IPO mandates involving Virgin Group companies are up for grabs in the UK, following the announcement by Richard Branson that he plans to float a number of Virgin businesses over the next two years. Although the mandates will not be awarded for some time, bankers tip Merrill Lynch as the frontrunner to land one or more of the proposed flotations.

THE SUPPLY of small to medium cap stocks to international investors from the Frankfurt stockmarket continues to grow -- offering new opportunities for exposure to the German economy at a time when the equity market is booming. Over the past weeks, concerns about an increase in German rates and another Asian crisis have checked the surge of Europe's stock markets, which have soared this year.