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THE REPUBLIC of the Philippines scored a new and unexpected success this week with the completion of its $610m refinancing. The ease with which the split fixed and floating rate deal saw books close twice oversubscribed surprised a number of bankers who had deemed pricing aggressively tight.

LEHMAN Brothers and Merrill Lynch yesterday (Thursday) sold 898m PT Telekomunikasi shares owned by the Indonesian government, raising $406.91m and underlining the advance of bullish sentiment across the region. The shares were sold at Rp3,650, a 2.01% discount to the close yesterday (Thursday) of Rp3,775. The sale represented 9.6% of the total 9.33bn shares outstanding. Lehman and Merrill have long been mandated for the privatisation and began marketing an issue earlier in the week after ABN Amro failed to put together a successful deal for part of the government stake.

THE AUSTRALIAN bond market re-affirmed its resilience this week with the easy absorption of benchmark issues for Deutsche Siedlungs und Landesrentenbank (DSL) and local retailer Coles Myer. Both transactions represented landmarks in Australia's rapidly widening domestic credit spectrum, with DSL becoming the first German issuer and second Kangaroo borrower in the sector this year, and Coles Myer the first corporate issuer to bring a 2003 offering.

Australia Hutchison Telecommunications Australia plans to raise A$500m in a float expected to be lead managed by Salomon Smith Barney and Warburg Dillon Read. A mandate has not yet been awarded as bankers are still examining whether there are any potential conflicts of interest arising from other telecom and telecom-related mandates elsewhere in the world.

>* Banca Lombarda SpA Rating: A2 Amount: Eu350m Maturity: June 7, 2004 Issue/fixed re-offer price: 99.906 Coupon: three month Euribor plus 15bp

JARDINE Fleming is to launch a HK$1bn ($129m) IPO for insurance company Top Glory in the next month. The majority shareholder of that company, Pacific Century, also completed a stunning $46m placement of new Tricom shares earlier in the week through BNP Prime Peregrine and HSBC Investment Bank. Pacific Century Regional Development (PCRD) holds 55.1% of unlisted insurance company Top Glory. The listing would make Top Glory only the second insurance counter listed in Hong Kong after National Mutual, which trades at a p/e of around 15 times.

Morocco Signing of the Eu160m three year term loan for Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE) will take place today (Friday) at a celebratory lunch in Frankfurt.