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ING São Paulo made a spectacular debut in the Italian market this week with a blowout Lit200bn three year offering, despite widening Latin spreads in the dollar market. The deal, led by Credito Italiano and ING Barings, soared in the secondary market to 100.75 from a reoffer of 99.95, bringing in its 297bp launch spread over lira swaps to 253bp.

MEXICAN oil concern Pemex plans to issue a £150m, 15 year deal next week, despite volatile emerging market conditions. Lead managers UBS and SBC Warburg Dillon Read took Pemex on roadshows this week, planning to price in the week ahead in line with Pemex dollar bond spreads.

CREDIT Suisse First Boston led the charge of medium sized companies to the Frankfurt stockmarket this week, completing the sale of stock in Sauer, a manufacturer of mobile hydraulic parts. Like most recent mid cap offerings out of Germany, the deal was well received by investors and was around four times oversubscribed. Salesmen in London said management gave good presentations to potential buyers which are gearing up for a heavy calendar of new issues from Germany.

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Lehman Brothers will next week launch the sale of stock in SGS Thomson, a deal that together with a convertible bond issue will raise $2bn. The lead managers will complete the sale of straight equity quickly with bookbuilding to be finished by the end of the first week of June for pricing around June 4. Some 19m common shares will be sold but if the 15% greenshoe option is exercised the transaction will push around 14% of the company's equity on to the markets.

US MARKETS regained confidence this week after a shaky start, generating enough momentum in the market to push a number of large deals through. The size of both primary and secondary US equity issues has been increasing this year and there were some large chunks of stock placed successfully this week with investors still hungry for the right name. But bankers caution that the backlog of new issues may now be starting to overhang the market.

THE CROATIAN government has completed the $238m sale of stock in national pharmaceuticals group, Pliva. This second offering of shares targeted retail as well as institutional investors. Although the domestic response to the deal was somewhat subdued, participants claim the sale has contributed toward creating a share-owning public in Croatia.

THE SUPPLY of new and secondary equity from Swiss corporates will boom this year as a result of new mood of openness to foreign investors among the country's corporates. Companies are changing as they have realised that they can attract a far higher valuation on their stock by widening their shareholdings to international investors.

THE TURKISH authorities have invited eight international investment banks to bid for the top slot in the sale of the national carrier, Turkish Airlines. The move follows fast on the heels of last week's offering for Isbank, the success of which is widely expected to speed up a privatisation programme that had languished in neutral for a number of years.

GOLDMAN Sachs (books) and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter have been mandated by BCE, the Canadian telecoms group, as global co-ordinators for the sale of its 14.25% stake in Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), the UK group. Investment banks have been circling BCE for some time in anticipation of the deal. The vendor had considered many options, including a bought deal, an exchangeable bond or an international public offering of the shares.

THE FRENCH Trésor this week again sold one of its small residual holdings through a bought deal -- and once more obtained an extremely tight bid for the shares on offer, a 5.8% stake in tobacco company Seita. Deutsche Morgan Grenfell was the winning bidder, beating half a dozen other contenders including Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Société Générale as well as several other French firms.

THE ITALIAN government's fourth sale of shares in Eni, the national oil and gas group, will begin in June, it was announced this week. That timetable marks a quickening of pace; the deal had been widely expected by the market to emerge some time in the summer, but not quite so promptly. The deal will involve the sale of around 12% of Eni's equity capital and will result in the government's ownership level falling to 39%.

* The Spanish government intends to target retail investors in the forthcoming sale of stock in the national electricity utility, Endesa. The deal, which is being run internationally by Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, will be launched next week and the authorities are keen that some 85% of the shares on offerare placed with small domestic buyers.