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ROADSHOWS for what may prove to be one of the last Korean issues to come to the 144A market this year have begun in the US. Bankers said that a prospective $300m Yankee issue for the Taegu Metropolitan Government (TMG) has been handicapped by a further widening of Korean spreads and the group's failure to win a full rating in line with the sovereign from both of the major US agencies.

CREDIT Suisse First Boston and SBC Warburg Dillon Read kicked off the European leg of the roadshow for the forthcoming $400m 10 year Euro/144A offering for the Republic of Lebanon this week. Having visited Switzerland and the UK this week, the focus of the marketing effort will now move to the US, with the launch of the landmark deal -- the longest dated stand alone transaction from the sovereign to date -- likely to take place late next week. Price talk on the B1/BB- rated transaction is 230bp-250bp over Treasuries.

LATIN Americans issuers continue to storm the lira market, with Petrobras expected to launch its Lit260bn 10 year deal either today (Friday) or on Monday and with Pemex and the UMS both lining up to issue soon after. Lead managers Chase were on Thursday waiting for the go-ahead on the Petrobras deal, which will raise the equivalent of about $150m. The transaction is expected to have an aggressive step-down coupon, dropping from 10% to 6.5%.

* ING Barings has begun marketing the Euromarket debut by Kazakhstan's Kazkommertsbank. Roadshows for the expected $100m three year Euro/144A offering were held in Frankfurt on Wednesday, Hartford/Boston today (Friday) and will continue in New York on Monday, Geneva on Tuesday and London on Wednesday. Launch is expected on Thursday, October 23. Pricing on the B2/B+ rated deal is likely to be set with reference to the trading spread on the $200m 9.25% December 1999 Euro/144A offering for the Ba3/BB- rated Republic of Kazakhstan.

INTERNATIONAL debt issuance by Polish corporates looks set to take off in the coming months, with leading Polish airline LOT and construction firm Aral looking to tap the Eurobond market with debut issues. Polish telco Netia is due to tap the US high yield debt market next week with a maiden issue. LOT, the state owned carrier scheduled for partial privatisation in 1998, has invited bids for the ratings advisory and lead management role on a $100m issue. It will be the first international bond issue by an airline from central and eastern Europe. LOT is understood to have requested proposals for fixed and floating rate issuance, with a minimum tenor of three years up to maximum of 10.

GLOBAL co-ordinators Goldman Sachs and Creditanstalt have launched the largest Austrian privatisation to date -- the government's sale of 50% of its holding in the national tobacco company, Austria Tabakwerke. Austrian shares do not usually attract high levels of interest from international investors and tobacco companies are not the easiest stocks to sell. But investment bankers say they are encouraged by the demand which has been elicited after two weeks of pre-marketing the transaction.

* Robert Fleming this week completed the $81m offering of shares in Lebanon's Banque Audi. The shares were offered as GDRs, and the deal was oversubscribed by four times. Some 40% of the stock on offer was allocated to investors in the UK, 20% to the US, 5% to Europe and 35% to the Lebanon. The deal was priced at $27, which represents a discount of 5% to the five-day average price of the locally listed 'C' shares.

THE GERMAN government's final sale of stock in Lufthansa was completed this week, despite continued volatility in the domestic stock market following last week's European interest rate rises. Global co-ordinators Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and SBC Warburg Dillon Read priced the deal at DM33.30 to raise DM4.7bn ($2.65bn) in the largest German privatisation share offering since last year's sale of stock in Deutsche Telekom.

SBC WARBURG Dillon Read and Merrill Lynch have completed the sale of shares in regional newspaper publisher Newsquest, marking a rare IPO in the subdued UK primary equity market. With stockmarket conditions volatile, institutional investors are sitting on the sidelines. Many are divesting equity holdings in favour of cash or derivatives and are reluctant to buy new paper other than the top pharmaceutical, oil or bank stocks.

LEAD managers Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and BBV Latinvest Securities jointly opened the way for Spanish corporates to access preference share capital in the US and international markets this week with a $700m offering from oil and gas group Repsol. The company, which became a fully privatised company earlier this year, became the first of its country's corporates to raise this type of finance. So far the market has been dominated by banks and other financial institutions using preference shares to boost capital ratios.

AS foreshadowed in Euroweek several months ago, Rhône Poulenc has launched a Ffr7bn capital increase to fund the 100% acquisition of its US subsidiary, Rhône-Poulenc Rorer (RPR). Société Générale is global co-ordinator in the sale of units in a global offering, with each unit representing one share with one warrant attached.

TELEFONICA del Perú will shortly launch the first ever sol denominated Eurobond transaction in a major step forward in the development of international markets in local Latin American currencies. The move, announced this week, will likely come on top of Mexican commercial bank Banamex's Mexican peso denominated debut.