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Arranger Rabobank International has closed syndication of its £125m two tranche revolving credit facility for Aggreko plc, achieving a 25% oversubscription. The facility is split between a five year tranche and a one year portion.

MERRILL LYNCH this week sold the first multi-currency issue of cumulative perpetual preference shares for a European corporate, raising $360m for Italian food group Parmalat. Although the notes were targeted at debt investors, they will be treated as equity for balance sheet purposes and offer Parmalat an ideal funding source as it ventures into emerging markets.

* Against a background of buoyant secondary markets but quiet new issue markets, Merrill Lynch led a $756m offering this week for the Rhode Island based Fleet Financial Group. The secondary offering was announced Monday and was priced last night (Thursday) at $70.375, representing a slight discount to the close of $70.4375. The deal had been scheduled for launch next week, but the strength of demand enabled Merrill to speed up the timetable.

MEDIOBANCA, GOLDMAN Sachs and Schroders defied market conditions this week to successfully complete the Lit4.9tr ($2.45bn) equity offering for Banca di Roma, Italy's second largest banking group. The deal comprised an offering of ordinary shares and the sale of exchangeable bonds, both of which were well oversubscribed. The deal established a core of institutional and retail investors for the bank at a time when fund managers are nervous about the long term.

LEAD MANAGERS UBS and Erste Bank this week completed the largest ever IPO for an Austrian company, raising Asch7bn ($560m) in a global offering of 10.02m Erste Bank shares. Salesman said that the deal was a tough sell, reflecting poor market conditions and the slowdown in investor interest in the approach to Christmas.

* Merrill Lynch and Argentaria have launched the sale of stock in Spanish construction company Actividades de Construcción y Servicios (ACS). This is a secondary offering with existing shareholders selling stock to raise cash so they can take part in the company's rights issue. The international and domestic tranches total 14.183m shares while there is a greenshoe option of an additional 1.8m shares. ACS is already listed in Madrid and its shares were trading this week in a Pta3,620 to Pta3,650 range.

SOCIETE GENERALE has begun marketing the IPO of French teleconferencing company Genesys, which is likely to be the last international offering from the country this year. The deal could raise up to Ffr200m with most of the proceeds accruing to the company. Some 1.186m ordinary shares are being offered to investors and Genesys plans to list its stock on the Nouveau Marché after the offering. In addition to the capital increase, shares are being sold by BNP, whose stake will fall from 35.5% to 16%. CDC will sell down from 26.7% to 12.3%, the stake of Worms & Cie will fall from 12.5% to 4.8%, GBG will cut its stake from 4.7% to 3.5% and the holding of Vertex will fall from 14.1% to 10.3%.

MERRILL LYNCH and Merita this week won the prized advisory mandate for the sale of Telecom Finland, one of a series of privatisations to emerge from the Nordic region next year. Finnish analysts expect the deal to take place in the second half of 1998 with the stock listed on several regional bourses and possibly the New York Stock Exchange. They also believe there will be a substantial free float, although the Finnish authorities have not indicated how much of the company will be sold. Bankers estimate that the company is worth as much as $7.7bn.

BANCO AMBROSIANO Veneto scored a resounding triumph in the subordinated debt markets this week when strong investor demand led to its deal being increased by $100m to $500m. The deal created a new benchmark for upper tier two capital, priced by joint bookrunners Barclays Capital and UBS at a re-offered spread of 95bp over Libor.

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LEBANON'S BANQUE du Liban et d'Outre-Mer (BLOM) this week became only the second Middle Eastern credit to issue subordinated debt in the international bond markets when it launched a $75m eight year bullet transaction via SBC Warburg Dillon Read. With a 9% headline coupon, BLOM's debut Euromarket issue was priced to yield 300bp over Treasuries at the issue/fixed re-offer price of 99.517. This represented a 25bp-30bp pick-up over the first subordinated transaction from the region -- the $75m 10 year non-call five issue for Lebanon's Banque Audi launched in mid-October via Merrill Lynch, which this week was trading at 255bp/250bp over Treasuries to its five year call.