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DEBT heavy Korean company Hyundai Electronics has sold a $50m convertible bond through UBS * revealing the company's desperation for funds, said analysts. The six year bonds were privately placed with a limited number of accounts. The bonds came with a 0.5% semi-annual coupon and have a put option at year five to yield 10.52%. Yield to maturity is thought to be 500bp over Treasuries, although arranger Union Bank of Switzerland declined to release figures, citing the private nature of the deal. The issue has a hard non-call for the first three years and is thereafter subject to a 190% hurdle - an unusually high level for a Korean convertible.

IN AN attempt to reduce its reliance on short term debt, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has revived plans to launch a $300m fixed rate offering via ANZ. Originally mandated last autumn, the five year deal was put on hold after the Asian crisis caused spreads to balloon across the region. Bankers, however, said that a new 144A deal can be expected within the next two months as B2/B+ rated country attempts to cut its debt service payments to more reasonable levels.

* Merrill Lynch is in the final stages of structuring a future trade receivables securitisation for a Chinese steel producer. The size of the deal will depend on two rating agencies' due diligence, but is likely to be at least $100m. The financing will be launched in the 144A market, possibly within the next two months, and probably without a monoline wrap. The transaction is believed to have been structured by a New York based team hired from JP Morgan. Before moving to Merrill, the group executed a similar deal for a Latin American steel company a year ago.

A CRITICAL new benchmark in China's burgeoning project bond sector was set in New York last night (Thursday) with the pricing of a debut $350m transaction for Cathay International via JP Morgan. In the absence of any plain vanilla debt issuance from the People's Republic, bankers said that the growing pipeline of asset backed and project finance deals will provide a key test of the outer limits of investor appetite for more esoteric paper.

SOME of the shine has began to come off Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's sale of bonds exchangeable into Singapore Telecom (SingTel) shares * heralded as a landmark at the end of March. The bonds, having been priced at par, stood around 96 yesterday (Thursday) on the back of negative company news, poorer sentiment in the fixed income market and some investor confusion over the structure of the issue. "SingTel announced a reduction in international tariff rates reflecting the telecom market's move from monopoly to competition," said one analyst. "That will inevitably affect the value of the core asset and the announcement reminded investors of that." But others said the fall in price could be explained by more immediate reasons. "The exchangeable bonds have created another route for investment in SingTel besides the shares. Logically that means that current prices could not be held, even with a surge in interest in the company," said an analyst.

YANZHOU Coal Mining has successfully debuted on the Hong Kong stock exchange, ending a listing process first delayed when the Hang Seng crashed in October and whose fate has followed every movement of the index. The issue, the first 'H' share of the year, was not the most exciting of issues, said analysts - but low pricing made it appealing. But in a vivid demonstration of the still febrile state of the 'H' share market, Merrill Lynch announced the postponement of a planned issue for Wuhan Iron & Steel, citing worries about weak demand.

THAILAND'S Bangkok Bank (BBL) will begin a roadshow with bookrunner Morgan Stanley on Monday in Singapore in a bid to raise up to $1bn though the sale of 400m shares. Bank officials are thought to want a price of Bt100 per share, just below the current foreign share price of Bt104, and substantially above the Bt88 that comparable credit Thai Farmers Bank achieved two weeks ago. Bankers said the success of the Thai Farmers Bank (TFB) issue - with Goldman Sachs as sole bookrunner - boded well for the new issue, and argued that the added flexibility of BBL in involving one or more strategic investors would help the sale.

ABN AMRO has been appointed by the Australian government as adviser on the privatisation of the remaining two-thirds of telecoms company Telstra. The sale - which depends on the re-election of prime minister John Howard and his government - is expected in either the last quarter of this year or the first quarter of 1999. Along with Credit Suisse First Boston and JB Were, ABN Amro was global co-ordinator for the Telstra IPO in November 1997. Rival bankers were quick to point the potential for a conflict of interest if ABN Amro is made a senior member of the syndicate for the new sale, which could raise as much as A$40bn ($26.6bn). Said one banker: "The government's advisor is concerned with getting the best price for a government asset, while a co-ordinator or lead manager has to consider other factors, such as the effect on outstanding shares."

UP TO six Australian borrowers are lining up to make debut US bond offerings during the second quarter, following an extremely quiet period in which most corporate activity was heavily focused on Australia's extremely competitive domestic bank market. Sydney-based bankers argue that the renewed surge of activity has resulted from a combination of factors, including a desire for longer term funding as interest rates reach the low point of their cycle and a realisation that the burgeoning Australian bond market is not yet mature enough to absorb longer dated tenors.

* The Republic of Uruguay received a rude awakening this week when it was penalised by investors for bringing a 10 year $250m deal to market at an aggressive price. Uruguay, which has always been able to boast the most aggressive pricing among Latins because of its investment grade rating and rarity value, saw its 7% bonds widen out to 150bp on Thursday afternoon from a launch spread of 140bp, even though it came at the wider end of its 135bp to 140bp talk.

ABN AMRO and Salomon Smith Barney this week led the first Eurodollar deal from the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) since August 1994, bringing a $300m five year issue for the Baa3/BBB- rated borrower. Having been roadshowed in Italy, Switzerland and the UK the previous week, the transaction hit the screens at 9am on Monday morning at an indicated spread of 80bp-82bp over the 5-1/2% March 2003 US Treasury. It was priced two hours later with a 6.5% coupon and a fixed re-offer price of 99.707 to give a launch spread of 81bp.

SMALLER Brazilian deals with shorter tenors were among the winners in the Latin new issue market in the past week, with Banco HSBC Bamerindus, Unibanco, Petrobras and Banco CCF all receiving a good response to their offerings. Unibanco was able to increase its Lit150bn two year deal to Lit200bn, led by Chase, after offering investors a highly attractive 7.5% coupon for such a short piece of paper.