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FUJITSU Support and Service is due to price its global IPO today (Friday) following a roadshow which shook off the negative aura of the Nikkei's recent performance to garner support in the upper half of its price range. Nomura is global manager for the 10m share IPO, to be sold in a price range of between ¥3,800 and ¥4,300, and raising up to ¥43bn (around $314m). Said one banker connected to the deal: "The Nikkei is suffering...but this is flying." He added that the deal looked set to repeat the success of the sale of shares in Toppan Forms, completed earlier this year, and up 64% since launch.

Hong Kong Standard & Poor's presented a dismal outlook for the Hong Kong economy this week, downgrading the Special Administrative Region from A+ to A with negative outlook.

US FINANCIAL guarantors AMBAC and MBIA, which cooperate in international markets through their joint venture MBIA-AMBAC International, have embarked on a strategic alliance with two of Japan's largest property and casualty insurance companies, Mitsui Marine and Fire and Yasuda Fire and Marine. The alliance is intended to strengthen MBIA-AMBAC's ability to provide financial guarantees for Japanese borrowers, particularly issuers of securitisations.

THE THAI cabinet this week approved a privatisation master plan that failed to convince bankers and analysts. The same constituency met the announcement that Thai Airways International (THAI) would postpone its share sale until the second half of 1999 with resigned dismay. The cabinet proposal is believed to contain few concrete measures. "It seems likely that the details of this plan are not known because they do not exist," said one head of research.

Australia Australia's Optus Communications could finally be nearing floatation, with the company saying this week it may soon break even and sees no impediment to a sale. Lead managers Merrill Lynch and Warburg Dillon Read remained more cautious and declined to speculate on a date for the transaction.

MALAYSIAN conglomerate MUI Media looks set to complete a HK$359m ($46.33m) private placement of South China Morning Post (Holdings) shares this week, defying the near-drying up of the Hong Kong primary market. Analysts said large fluctuations in the share price of SCMP * remarkable even against the recent background of dramatic daily changes in the Hang Seng index * have raised suspicions that a sale was imminent.

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Ghana Standard Chartered and Ghana International Bank have received an excellent response from banks at the co-arranging level of the $320m pre-export finance facility for Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod).

ACQUISITIVE Dutch supermarket group, Ahold, is pressing ahead with its $2bn equity offering in one of the first post-summer tests of sentiment in primary European equity markets.

China SG Asia has launched a $30m fundraising for Guangdong International Trust & Investment Corp.

Australia Warburg Dillon Read is close to completing the sale of the $125m financing for Orogen Minerals.