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GOLDMAN Sachs this week launched an innovative credit linked structure that provides a hedge for some of the insurance exposure of Gerling Insurance Group. Gerling's intention is to free up capital that it holds against the remote risk of very severe losses on its portfolio of credit insurance contracts for small businesses. But the insurer has avoided the uncomfortable process of having its books picked over by rating agencies, by using a separate pool of businesses as the reference portfolio.

JOINT bookrunners Bear Stearns, De Nationale Investeringsbank and ING Barings-BBL this week launched the fourth in a series of securitisations of Dutch residential mortgages for subsidiaries of DNIB, or insurance companies that originate mortgages financed by the bank. The Dutch tax system is highly favourable to home ownership, and has encouraged insurance companies to originate sophisticated savings and investment mortgages linked to insurance policies -- the combination is in part a tax shelter for the borrowers.

BANK OF Tokyo-Mitsubishi this week priced its $1bn securitisation of loans to US corporates, Millennium Loan Trust. JP Morgan and Tokyo-Mitsubishi International ran the books jointly for the deal's $450m 'A1' tranche -- unusually for a US CLO, it has a passthrough rather than a soft bullet structure. With an average life of 1.9 years and expected maturity in July 2002, it priced at 22bp over one month Libor.

The prices of forwards, futures and options contain a great deal of information about what the market thinks or fears about future market conditions.

Merrill Lynch is poised to launch Shinhan Bank's GDR sale of up to $400m at the beginning of April, raising hopes that Korea will lead the rehabilitation of Asia's moribund equity markets. Together with next week's pricing of Kepco's $500m ADR sale and the imminent launch of Korea Telecom's IPO, the Shinhan sale would provide the first continuous deal flow from any single country in the region for more months than equity capital market bankers care to recall.

China Liuzhou Wuling Auto, Zhejiang Hisum Pharmaceutical and Xuzhou Engineering have dealt the stumbling 'B' share market a further blow this week in announcing that they were withdrawing their plans for IPO issues this year due to low valuations on the market.

The Singapore corporate bond market saw the beginnings of a credit curve develop this week following the launch of a debut S$150m five year deal from Ford Motor Credit. Led by Deutsche Bank with HSBC as co-lead, the A1/A rated five year issue was the first by an overseas borrower not to be rated triple-A.

Australia's highest rated corporate credit blazed a new trail through the domestic bond market this week with the launch of one of the largest and longest dated issues the sector has yet seen. The A$530m split five and 10 year transaction for triple-A rated Australia Post is scheduled to be priced today (Friday) by lead manager Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), after attracting huge levels of oversubscription from both domestic and international investors.

JAPANESE asset backed issuance reached a crescendo this week, as finance companies hastened to fulfil funding targets before the end of the financial year on March 31. Five deals were launched this week without any apparent sign of investor fatigue -- and significantly, only one transaction was swapped into a foreign currency. Market watchers said that while most Japanese investors are still unfamiliar with securitisation, demand is on the increase.

THE MOST important deal of the year for the busy Scandinavian loans market gets underway this week -- the Eu450m seven year multicurrency revolver for Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA). Bankers are already calling it a benchmark transaction and point to the margin as an indication of the emergence of higher pricing levels in the region. SCA, a forest products and packaging producer, has mandated two arrangers, Deutsche (also bookrunner) and Svenska Handelsbanken (also documentation and facility agent).

Denmark While early market talk suggested a price in the thirties for Danisco's Eu1bn bridge facility, arranger Deutsche is offering it at the much tighter price of 20bp over Libor.

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