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JILLIN Oil and Worldbest Kama Machinery are preparing an assault on the China B-share market in the coming weeks even though the sector has not been conducive to new issuance this year. So far in 1998 a number of B-share deals, including Shanghai Municipal Electric Power, have been pulled due to a lack of interest and exceptionally low valuations.

* Bankers continued to pitch for 12 privatisation mandates from the Indonesian government in Singapore this week. The government * fearing for bankers safety following the events of last week * declined to relocate the bidding exercise to Jakarta. One senior banker said: "This is investment banking at its worst. Everyone who is making a pitch realises there is no way a deal could get done in the next few months."

* Austria Haustechnik (AHT), the world's largest manufacturer of ice-cream chest freezers, is to float on the Vienna stockmarket. The deal is the first Austrian IPO this year. AHT will issue 1.07m ordinary shares at an indicated price range of Asch345 to Asch415, valuing the company at around Asch700m ($56m).

SBC WARBURG Dillon Read has launched the sale of shares in Coca-Cola Beverages, a new company created through the demerger of Australia's Coca-Cola Amatil that will incorporate the company's European operations and the acquisition of Coca-Cola Bevande Italia, the Italian bottling operations owned by Coca-Cola of the US. The new company is the largest bottler of carbonated flavoured drinks in central and eastern Europe and will operate in 13 countries including Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and the Czech Republic.

INTERNATIONAL investors are eagerly awaiting a slew of flotations from private companies in Switzerland. This market has conventionally represented a slim source of primary equity, but corporates are wising up to shareholder value and have become attracted to the potentially rich valuations that international investors can give to their stocks.

DESPITE volatile conditions throughout European and US stockmarkets this week, a number of hugely successful convertibles were placed with investors, especially those in the fixed income and specialist CB sectors. CSFB continued its run of good fortune with the sale of one of the largest exchangeable bonds to be denominated in Dutch guilders.

THE US MARKETS succumbed to renewed worries over Asia this week, with fewer new issues completed in the face of unsettled market conditions. Although investors remain generally bullish, bankers say they are becoming selective and increasingly concerned about overly high market valuations. Some argue that investor caution is good for the market in the long run, leading to a more realistic assessment of companies.

THE FRENCH government is set to launch its programme of state sales for 1998, issuing invitations for banks to pitch for the lead role in the privatisation of troubled French bank Crédit Lyonnais and approving the opening of the equity capital of state owned aerospace group, Aerospatiale. The flotation of Crédit Lyonnais shares will take place on a fairly fast time-table with the sale due to reach the markets in October and slated to raise between $1.5bn and $2bn in revenues for the government. The nomination of the global co-ordinator of the deal is likely to be made in the next few weeks.

THE MARKET for growth companies in the communications sector continues to provide promising opportunities for institutional investment. DLJ revealed that it will be global co-ordinator in the sale of shares in ICO Global Communication this week, just a week after the announcement that Equant, formerly Sita Telecommunications, will be floated in Amsterdam and New York.

KOÇ HOLDING, the Turkish conglomerate, this week filed a registration statement with the Turkish stockmarket authorities for its international share offering due for launch in June via Goldman Sachs It also disclosed details of the structure of the offering, declaring that it will take the form of a capital increase of around 7.8% of the firm's nominal share capital (1,249,450,000 shares) as well as the sale of 138,550,000 shares by the Koç family. The family will also grant underwriters an over-allotment option of around 15% of the offering to cover the greenshoe.

COMMERCIAL International Bank of Egypt (CIB) is at an advanced stage of arranging a capital increase that will offer international investors exposure to one of the better performing Middle Eastern stocks. The bank is interviewing lead managers for the deal, which is expected in the third or fourth quarters of this year. CIB came to the international markets in 1996 through the sale of GDRs led by ING Barings -- the first sale of receipts from an Egyptian group.

CZECH telecom company Ceske Radiokomunikace (CR) this week braved a cold climate for central and eastern European stocks. Led by Creditanstalt, the offering involved the sale of 8.19m shares as GDRs and ordinary shares with an issue price set at $16.33 (Ck525). The stockmarkets of central Europe are reacting to the effects of a near evacuation of the emerging markets in recent weeks as concerns of a prolonged economic and political crisis in Asia were heightened by fears of interest rate rises on the continent and in the US.