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FANNIE MAE completed the second exchange of outstanding bullet securities into its Benchmark Notes this week, in the process creating a $7.7bn 10 year bond. Fannie Mae offered to exchange 34 dollar denominated MTNs totalling $6.12bn into its 6.375% June 2009 Benchmark Note via arranger Bear Stearns. By the time the offer had closed, some $2.67bn - just over 40% of the bonds - had been exchanged.

CSFB AND Cazenove are to conclude the sale of stock in Freeserve this weekend. The flotation of the free UK internet service provider by parent group Dixons has sparked as much interest as it has controversy. The deal has been dogged with criticism from analysts arguing that Freeserve will be vulnerable to competition from US and other UK providers. But the keen levels of interest expressed by investors in its shares has followed through to a heavy oversubscription.

Investors are showing renewed interest in biotech stocks as the sector matures and profits increase. JP Morgan this week completed the IPO for one of the world's largest biotech companies, Genentech, raising $1.7bn. Swiss pharmaceuticals company Roche Holdings decided to float its Californian biotech subsidiary, having increased its holding in the company to 100% this June. Roche acquired a 70% stake in Genentech in 1990, and exercised a call option last month to purchase the remaining third of stock. Genentech originally went public in 1980.

Market commentary: Compiled by Jim Webber,

THE Eu300m five year term loan for the Republic of Hungary provoked an extraordinary range of opinions this week, especially among bankers who had bid for the mandate and therefore have determined opinions about what the pricing should be. Mandated arrangers ABN Amro, Central European Investment Bank, Commerzbank and WestLB are seeking arrangers to share the underwriting, and co-arrangers to come in on a take-and-hold basis.

India The $150m fundraising for Indian Oil Corp has closed oversubscribed and was increased from $100m. Co-ordinator BA Asia held $25m.

Argentina There are two levels of fees on offer for the $75m one year bridge facility being arranged by Santander Investment Securities Inc, Citibank NA, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya SA and Crédit Lyonnais for Empresa Distribuidora Norte SA (Edenor).

Italian borrowers have been quick to seize the opportunities presented by the new euro bond market, launching a series of benchmark transactions this year in a bid to expand their investor base across Europe and beyond. The country's leading corporate and municipal borrowers have been among the most active debt issuers from Europe - headed, of course, by Olivetti, whose audacious takeover of Telecom Italia has heralded the new era of corporate restructuring and M&A activity that is set to transform Europe's industrial landscape and financial markets.

The supply of German blue-chip equity is set to increase in the third and fourth quarter of this year as a large number of well-known groups, such as Hoescht and Siemens, spin off some of their subsidiary companies to concentrate on core assets. That has sparked a race between investment banks keen to secure mandates to distribute stock in these spun-off

Argentina's debt raising plans were dealt another blow yesterday (Thursday) when Standard & Poor's reaffirmed its BB rating but downgraded the sovereign's outlook to negative from stable. Despite a flight to S&P's New York headquarters last week by Argentine under secretary of finance Miguel Kiguel, the rating agency decided to downgrade the sovereign's outlook because of doubts that the next president could pass much-needed reforms after the October elections.

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