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THE Portuguese government looks likely to move away from its traditional method of rotating lead managers for privatisation mandates, instead rewarding banks which have performed well in previous sales. Goldman Sachs looks likely to team up with ABN Amro Rothschild and BPI to lead the next sale of stock in Electricidade de Portugal (EdP) while Morgan Stanley and BFE looks front runners for the sale of a further stake in the national cement producer, Cimpor. These banks were involved in the companies' earlier sales.

INVESTORS in some of France's largest and best corporates will be offered new stock in capital increases in the next few weeks. The wave of activity demonstrates that the country's leading industrial groups, in common with their German counterparts, intend to make the most of the current bull market sweeping through continental exchanges. Household names such as Cap Gemini, Lafarge and Latecoere are all set to raise capital from existing investors, but the strength of the Paris market is also inspiring many other smaller cap groups to list shares and raise additional capital on the public markets.

THE supply of convertible paper continued to build this week, following last week's range of successful deals from high quality issuers. Institutional investors lapped up the opportunity to purchase plain vanilla deals as well as synthetics and exchangeables, and salesmen say that the reception given to these transactions should be more than enough to encourage other banks and corporates to issue more paper. Lead manager Nomura joined forces with co-lead ABN Amro Rothschild and co-manager Robert Fleming to launch a rare UK convertible, a £50m issue for bio-tech group, Scotia.

NATIONAL telecom operator, Telefónica, will bolster its equity capital through a Pta600bn ($3.87bn) rights issue in the largest call yet on existing shareholders for a corporate capital increase in the Spanish market. Bank BCH had already announced that it will increase its capital through a $1.1bn rights issue.

THE US stockmarkets followed the pattern established in recent weeks, with both the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indices climbing steadily at the beginning of the week only to subside by Thursday as investors consolidated gains. Although many participants anticipated that the Dow would hit the 9,000 mark for the first time, other buyers appeared to be on the sidelines, taking stock of recent rises and the mid-April corporate reporting season.

UNION BANK of Switzerland has won the battle for control of the syndicated loan business in Warburg Dillon Read -- the investment arm of the new United Bank of Switzerland. Jonathon Macdonald will head the group in London, after a impressive stint as head of syndicated loans for UBS in Hong Kong. And bankers say most of the new loan department will be dominated by UBS staff.

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