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DONALDSON, Lufkin & Jenrette has swooped on São Paulo based investment bank Garantia and snapped up two of its best bankers as the Brazilian firm struggles with huge losses arising from the market meltdown last year. Within hours of Garantia reporting a 90% plunge in its net profit for 1997, DLJ announced that it had poached managing directors Jose Olympio and Eduardo Alcalay to jumpstart its Brazilian office.

THE REPUBLIC of the Philippines has mandated JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter to lead manage a global bond of up to $500m in what may be the first mainstream sovereign borrowing from Asia this year.

LEHMAN BROTHERS brought $600m of fixed rate bonds this week, backed by rental income and repurchase agreements on Avis Rent-a-Car's US fleet. The Euro/144A bond is the second from Aesop Funding II LLP, a master trust which began funding in July last year with a blow out $1.65bn deal, also lead managed by Lehman.

MORGAN STANLEY Dean Witter this week brought the first long dated securitisation backed by UK public houses, for Wellington Pub Co plc. The £231m deal is also the first pub securitisation to rely entirely on current revenue for repayment of principal. Wellington parcels cashflows from the 845 pubs sold by Nomura-backed Phoenix Inns to Grovebase Ltd and the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund in November last year.

COMPTOIR des Entrepreneurs returned to the market this week with a Ffr1.5bn deal from Vauban Mobilisations Garanties, the finance company's triple-A rated mortgage securitisation vehicle. CPR, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Société Générale ran the books jointly with no further syndicate, expecting the asset swap accounts who dominated sales to take large tickets.

MERRILL LYNCH brought a $262m global bond for Countrywide Home Loans Inc, backed by loans to B and C credit borrowers in the US. Countrywide Securities acted as co-manager. Countrywide Asset Backed Securities 1998-1 was broken into four floating rate and seven fixed rate tranches. The bulk of the deal came as FRNs, reflecting the proportion of the collateral which is floating rate.

There is no particular value at which a foreign exchange rate is stable.

THE PARENT company of Hong Kong red chip Shanghai Industrial Holdings (SIH) brought colour to the desolate Asian issuance landscape when its $125m exchangeable bond was up to six times oversubscribed. This prompted arrangers Morgan Stanley and Salomon Smith Barney to exercise a $25m greenshoe yesterday (Thursday). Rival bankers were unusually generous in their praise for the deal which emerged ahead of a stream of convertibles due from Taiwan. One syndicate head went as far as to call the sale "outstanding".

LEAD MANAGER Salomon Smith Barney today (Friday) priced a $85m convertible for Taiwan's Orient Semiconductor Electronics, the first of 1998. Although priced on the back of a surging stock, the bonds sold strongly demonstrating the appeal of correctly structured and priced hybrid instruments from the right Asian names. Said one rival banker: "The company has a great equity story and can afford to be aggressive in its pricing." OSE shares have risen almost 70% on the local market since the beginning of this year.

* Bank of America is believed to have won NatWest Markets' mandate for global co-ordinator of the $250m 'B' share listing and GDR sale of Jilin Hongyuan Oil Development Company. NatWest Markets -- in a new guise after a consortium led by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China takes over -- is likely to retain a role in the deal which is the first 'B' share flotation of an oil company.

BANK OF Queensland made its debut in the Australian mortgage backed market this week with an A$200m deal through sole manager SBC Warburg Dillon Read. Series 1998-1 REDS Trust issued A$198.4m of class 'A' notes with an average life of three years and two months, and A$10.6m of 'B' notes with a notional six year and four month average life.

THE ASIAN Development Bank launched what bankers hailed as a landmark transaction in the Hong Kong dollar market this week in an attempt to establish a liquid benchmark curve at the short end of the currency. The HK$3bn transaction was launched in three tranches of one, two and three years, with each tranche sized at HK$1bn. HSBC Markets was the bookrunner.