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>* Banca Lombarda SpA Rating: A2 Amount: Eu350m Maturity: June 7, 2004 Issue/fixed re-offer price: 99.906 Coupon: three month Euribor plus 15bp

JARDINE Fleming is to launch a HK$1bn ($129m) IPO for insurance company Top Glory in the next month. The majority shareholder of that company, Pacific Century, also completed a stunning $46m placement of new Tricom shares earlier in the week through BNP Prime Peregrine and HSBC Investment Bank. Pacific Century Regional Development (PCRD) holds 55.1% of unlisted insurance company Top Glory. The listing would make Top Glory only the second insurance counter listed in Hong Kong after National Mutual, which trades at a p/e of around 15 times.

Morocco Signing of the Eu160m three year term loan for Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE) will take place today (Friday) at a celebratory lunch in Frankfurt.

POSITIVE sentiment toward emerging market debt product this week helped the Republic of Latvia to enjoy a highly successful debut in the public Eurobond markets. The Baltic sovereign's Eu150m five year offering proved a blow-out success with yield-hungry European institutional and retail investors, attracted by a new sovereign name.

A SOFTER Latin new issue market this week saw borrowers offer bonds at attractive prices to entice investors struggling to digest the heavy recent issuance. Pemex offered the biggest transaction, a $500m 28/put seven year 144A deal (led by Salomon Smith Barney) at 425bp -- the widest end of its 400bp to 425bp spread talk and at least 50bp over the sovereign curve.

THE BROADGATE office development at the heart of the modern City of London was securitised this week. The landmark transaction for the complex -- home to ABN Amro, Bankers Trust, the EBRD, Lehman Brothers and UBS -- took European property finance into new territory. The deal stands as an emblem of securitisation's arrival at the centre of the capital markets.

A DEBATE is brewing this week over the pricing of the $150m five year export financing for the Czech Export Bank. The deal is being arranged by ABN Amro and Commerzbank, and is split into two tranches. The first is a $100m revolver, and the second is a $50m term loan. The pricing is important -- this is the first bank deal to come out of the Czech Republic in 1999.