Search results for

MOMENTUM for the Republic of Korea's first ever direct borrowing in the international debt markets gathered pace this week as the country received a welcome rating boost and appointed lead managers for forthcoming issues. On Monday, the republic announced that it had appointed Goldman Sachs and Salomon Smith Barney to lead manage up to $9bn of bond issues.

DKB International lead managed its first asset backed security this week, as it successfully introduced Japanese finance company Orient Corporation to the Euromarkets. OSCAR Funding Corp sold a $300m FRN backed by consumer auto loans at 28bp over one month Libor. The deal has an average life of 1.85 years and should mature at 3-1/2 years through a 5% clean up call.

TOPPAN Form's $300m IPO is already oversubscribed, despite a degree of confusion as potential buyers struggle get to grips with the company, Japan's biggest business forms printer. Retail interest is already moving up through the syndicate, although roadshows have yet to move to the US. These investors are usually less price sensitive than institutional buyers. Pricing on the Nomura led deal -- though not yet set -- is settling around the ¥1,100 to ¥1,150 level although some investors believe it should be ¥1,200.

A GROUP of 10 banks will submit bids today (Friday) for the much sought after mandate to arrange a $1bn five year credit facility for the Kingdom of Thailand. Euroweek has learnt that the 10 banks are ABN Amro, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Banque Nationale de Paris, Barclays, Citibank, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Development Bank of Singapore, Industrial Bank of Japan and Sakura.

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter and Salomon Smith Barney again showed themselves to be two of the most aggressive fee-cutters in the Brazilian privatisation advisory and equity business this week by undercutting their competition by one third to win the coveted Telebras advisory mandate. The Morgan Stanley/Salomon led Brasilcom consortium, which once lagged third in the technical portion of the bid, snatched the mandate away from its technically better-rated rivals by bidding what is believed to be the lowest fee level yet submitted for a Brazilian privatisation advisory mandate.

ARGENTINA THIS week signalled the official end to the days of lira deals priced as much as 75bp inside dollar yield curves, when it launched its first of 14 lira deals in line with dollar spreads. Needing size and a longer maturity, Argentina launched a Lit750bn deal maturing in 2009 with a 10.375% upfront coupon stepping down to 8% in 2000. Chase and Paribas were the joint leads.

CONCERNS that the Latin new issue equity market is still struggling to open were heightened this week as Celumovil, the Colombian cellular phone company, struggled to gain investor attention. The planned $175m initial public offering, led by Salomon Smith Barney and Santander Investment, is to be the first Latin deal for the year, with pricing scheduled for February 26.

THE REPUBLIC of Colombia this week scored a much needed success in the European debt markets with a Lit400bn four year debut which achieved better pricing than its recent sterling deal. After an intensive roadshow, leads JP Morgan and Chase were able to increase the offering from an original Lit300bn and launch it within its spread range, at 207bp over four year lira Libor swaps.

* The launch prospects for the debut dollar Eurobond for Russian diamond producer Almazy Rossii-Sakha (Alrosa) via Salomon Smith Barney and SBC Warburg Dillon Read looked brighter this week, following the announcement that the Russian government had been granted a one year extension to its current $9.2bn three year extended fund facility from the IMF. The news provided a much needed boost to the prices of all Russian assets. Ba2/BB- rated Alrosa completed a series of public investor presentations in Europe and the US last week and has since conducted a number of one-on-one meetings with potential buyers.

US NEW issues are set to benefit from the wave of record-breaking market performances this week with blue chip stocks riding through the sixth straight day of record highs. The Dow Jones closed yesterday at 8375.58 ending the record run as some investors cashed in their gains, but the index had been as high as 8451 on Wednesday. This performance bodes well for the US IPO market and investors have several large issues to choose from in the coming weeks.

SBC WARBURG Dillon Read is now acting as joint bookrunner with ING Barings on the sale of stock in Dutch trading company Hagermeyer -- the largest secondary offering to date in the Dutch market -- reflecting the speed with which the equity division of UBS is being integrated into that of SBC following the decision of the two banks to merge. Last month, UBS won the mandate alongside ING Barings. As financial adviser to the company, UBS remains global co-ordinator.

ITALY'S IRI has announced plans to further reduce its stake in Aeroporti di Roma through a stock offering this year. Lehman Brothers led the IPO for the company in July, regarded as one of the most successful privatisations completed last year. Lehman is favourite to get the opportunity to repeat that success with the follow-on offer.