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What is exposure? It is one of the buzzwords of modern risk management, but in fact the word is used to describe a number of different variables.

AUSTRALIAN insurance giant AMP launched its first sterling bond in over eight years this week, in the inaugural transaction off its newly signed $4bn MTN programme. Led by Warburg Dillon Read, the £160m 12 year deal marked a milestone for the group, which despite an asset base weighted to the UK, is relatively unknown to the sterling bond buying community.

A SIX day Hang Seng rally and the inclusion of red chips in the IFC emerging markets index paved the way for around $420m in placements in Hong Kong this week. China Merchants Holdings (CMHI) opened the market and the week's largest trade, for Shanghai Industrial Holdings (SIH), effectively closed it. In between the two deals, placements were completed for Café de Coral, China Aerospace, Guangnan Holdings and Guangzhou Investment (GZI). Yesterday (Thursday), Citic Ka Wah Bank was also added to the list of placements. One banker described the week as "a feeding frenzy".

THE FIRST major public bond offering by one of Singapore's statutory boards is being primed for launch over the next three weeks, with the Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) set to launch a S$300m ($185m) seven year deal. The issue marks a major new stage in the Singapore government's programme to craft the island state into the region's major financial centre outside Japan. Having recently extended its own yield curve out to 10 years for the first time, the government hopes that a continuous programme of issues by the wholly owned statutory boards will give the domestic bond market much needed vibrancy and depth.

KOREA Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) has become the first Korean corporate issuer to bring a new deal to the dollar market since the republic's groundbreaking $4bn global in April. In the form of a $100m one year FRN, and led by Credit Suisse First Boston, the issue was priced yesterday (Thursday) at 425bp over Libor, the more aggressive end of a 425bp to 450bp range.

THE REVIVAL in demand for credit product continued this week as new issues spread out of the dollar market and into the Deutschmark sector, prompting the first concrete signs of a return by European institutions to the corporate bond market.

THE REVIVAL in demand for credit product continued this week as new issues spread out of the dollar market and into the Deutschmark sector, prompting the first concrete signs of a return by European institutions to the corporate bond market. Leading the way -- and setting an encouragingly positive tone for the market -- was a DM1bn 10 year deal for Dutch chemicals and pharmaceuticals group Akzo Nobel.

THE INFORMATION memorandum for the $600m Al Tawellah A2 power and water desalination project financing sponsored by CMS Energy will be issued within the next 10 days by arranger Barclays Capital. Details of the deal's terms are scarce. However, it is understood to have a 17 year maturity. The pricing should be around 80bp over Libor pre-completion. Post completion the margin can move up to as high as 150bp. CMS Energy won the concession to develop the project on a build-own-operate basis in October from the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (ADWEA), beating off rival bids from Enron and Tractebel.

CONFIDENCE in a rebound in the Latin new issue market received another boost this week when Argentina launched a $300m reopening of its 2006 global bond and a Sfr100m five year deal. The $300m issue, led by Chase, was launched at a price of 98.28bp, about a point below market levels at the time of pricing. Its launch spread was around 660bp, representing about a 20bp concession to secondary levels.

Hong Kong HSBC Markets and Hang Seng Bank have completed a HK$1.25bn FRCD for Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp.

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* Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA