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China Roadshows were held in Hong Kong and Singapore this week for the syndication of the international tranches of Shandong Guangzhou Power Company's $2.2bn power project financing, with presentations to be held in London, Paris and Frankfurt next week. Arrangers Greenwich NatWest, IBJ Asia and SG Asia report strong interest in the deal despite rumours in the market that the project does not meet World Bank environmental guidelines for gas emissions. The arrangers deny this is the case and argue that the deal has been cleared of any infringement of World Bank guidelines.

THE FLOOD of jumbo sized loans is set to continue into the third quarter with news that the Channel Tunnel Rail Link project, which has a cost of £5.8bn (or £7.7bn if allowing for inflation), will now go ahead. The UK's deputy prime minister and transport minister John Prescott this week accepted restructured plans from London & Continental Railways, the project's sponsor, involving the financing and development of a high speed rail link between London and the Channel Tunnel.

DAVID Bonsall has taken a team of 20 asset backed professionals to set up an international securitisation group at CIBC Wood Gundy. Until the recent merger with SBC Warburg, Bonsall was the global head of securitisation at UBS, in terms of volume and diversity of transactions a market leader in international asset securitisation. The 20 strong team are all former members of that team, and some key staffers will replay their UBS roles at CIBC Wood Gundy. Mark Lewis will lead the marketing and deal execution effort in Europe, while Fazel Ahmed fills that role in Asia.

THREE collateralised loan obligations, worth a total of $2.8bn, have been launched since last Friday. All came in floating rate dollars, but the similarities ended there. The largest, at $1.3bn, was Indosuez Capital Funding IV. CIBC Oppenheimer lead managed the deal for Indosuez Capital, a US subsidiary of Crédit Agricole Indosuez.

AT LEAST eight London-based securitisation officials have resigned from Deutsche Bank, most of them dissatisfied with new roles they were assigned after a reorganisation. Among the departing staff is Robin Saunders, who had headed the London asset backed group.

GREENWICH NatWest is to securitise a completely new asset class -- VAT receivables. A $100m CP facility has been arranged for Meridian VAT Reclaim, a Dublin based company which reclaims VAT from EU tax authorities for clients around the world. "Meridian is by far the largest VAT recovery organisation in the world," said Stuart Lammin, associate director in NatWest's London asset securitisation group. "Most of the claims arise from business travel. The amounts are very small, so there is a huge quantity of data to process -- Meridian's systems are extremely impressive."

* Merrill Lynch will next week launch Contimortgage Home Equity Loan Trust 1998-2, a $1.75bn deal with fixed and floating rate tranches. * Deutsche Bank is believed to be preparing a £115m residential mortgage securitisation for Kensington Mortgage Co -- the deal may launch as early as next week.

STUDENT LOANS, LONG A FAMILIAR ASSET class in the US, first emerged in the UK in March this year, when Greenwich NatWest securitised £1.03bn of the assets. Bringing new asset classes to the markets is rarely easy, but structuring the first student loans deal was more complex than most.

DESPITE THE RAPID PACE OF DEVELOPMENT in neighbouring countries, the UK securitisation market continues to the provide the largest and most diverse source of structured financings in Europe. Over £12bn ($19bn) of asset backed securities were issued during 1997, and participants expect at least the same amount to emerge during 1998.

WHEN ABN AMRO LAUNCHED ITS FIRST mortgage backed security in September 1997, it struck into new territory. The Dfl 2bn transaction, labelled European Mortgage Securities I, virtually doubled the outstanding guilder asset backed market, and created a benchmark for future securitisations in the currency.

Asian issuers have so far been infrequent borrowers in the Eurobond markets - whether in dollars, yen or any of the European currencies. And this trend seems unlikely to change over the near term while the region grapples with its devastating financial crisis.

Securitisation practitioners in Europe have high hopes for the coming of the euro. More investors will turn to asset backed securities in a search for yield, bankers believe, and governments, banks and corporates will have stronger incentives to securitise their assets.