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ACTIVITY in the German small-cap primary market is set to continue, with Robert Fleming to lead manage its first deal on the Neuer Markt (NM) next week. The UK firm, which has missed out on the recent NM boom, has won the mandate to lead the $20m sale of stock in Articon Information Systems. Articon is the privately owned leading provider of Internet security, including auditing protection.

A surprise 25bp cut in interest rates by the Federal Reserve on Thursday caused spread tightening of up to 10bp in high grade bonds and between 50bp and 60bp in emerging market debt. The Fed said it was acting in response to growing lender caution and unsettled conditions in financial markets that were restraining the US economy.

HOW MANY more of yesterday's Wall Street heroes will bite the dust? John Meriwether and his Hole In The Wall gang are already being measured for Boot Hill. Nomura's Ethan Penner and CSFB's Andy Stone are down to their last bullet and their last $100m. Mike Vranos, once the fastest mortgage gun at Kidder Peabody, now carries only a water pistol (and that only fires backwards). Julian Robertson of Tiger gunned down six of the seven Samurai but the one Japanese survivor caught Robertson with a round of buck-shot in the duff.

India Barclays Capital is in discussions with two possible co-arrangers for Bina Power Supply Co's $205m project financing.

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter hopes to launch the £2bn securitisation of contracted and future revenues for Formula One, the UK company that promotes international motor sport, in the next two weeks, and will issue a prospectus next week. "The premarketing phase has gone extremely well, considering the ugly market we had last week," said Jim O'Brien, head of investment grade credit trading at Morgan Stanley. "We have three teams of salespeople visiting European investors with representatives of Formula One, and another team in Asia, and the feedback from investors has been very positive."

NOMURA International has begun marketing the £155m securitisation of cashflows from 569 tenanted pubs for UK brewer Marston, Thompson & Evershed. The deal will be Nomura's first agency securitisation in Europe -- the bookrunner plans to launch the bond in two to three weeks.

VIRGIN Rail Group, which operates two train services in the UK, has appointed Royal Bank of Scotland and Lombard GATX as preferred financiers for its two orders of high technology tilting trains. The deals are set to close by year end. Rolling stock leasing company Angel Train Contracts, which RBS acquired from Nomura's principal finance group in December 1997, will buy 55 trains with a maximum speed of 140 miles per hour from Alstom and Fiat Ferroviaria for over £500m, and lease them to VRG for its West Coast Main Line route.

* Australian investment bank Macquarie Bank is considering selling PUMA, the mortgage securitisation business that has become one of the country's most successful mortgage backed issuers. The bank has invited bids, but not committed itself to a sale. PUMA is a rare animal -- it neither originates mortgages nor lead manages securitisations. Instead, it processes mortgages written by independent non-bank originators into securitisable pools, and awards mandates to investment banks.

A convertible grants the bondholder the right to convert the bond into a predetermined number of shares of common stock, i.e. the bondholder is long a call on the issuer's stock.

THE CHINESE government's abrupt closure this week of its second largest International Trust & Investment Corporation (Itic) and one of its 10 original international windows has been interpreted as a politically motivated but largely positive development in its efforts to clean up the republic's financial system. Asian bankers concluded that initial reports focusing on the implications of the Guangdong Itic's (Gitic) demise for the overall financial system have obscured the important political message the Chinese government was trying to put across.

THE NTT DoCoMo sale looks set to be a major success, despite the daunting scale of the $15bn IPO and massive pressure from the Nikkei following a 5.8% fall yesterday (Thursday) which was the largest drop in seven years. The sale of 545,000 shares led by Goldman Sachs and Nikko is due to be priced on Monday at around ¥3.6m, slightly below last week's expectations. Market turmoil has prompted investors to seek pricing in the lower half of the ¥3.3m to ¥4.3m range.

Australia The Queensland Government has appointed JB Were to lead manage the sale of its remaining 31% stake in Suncorp-Metway which provides banking and insurance services. Part of the offer will be in the form of 142.5m exchanging instalment receipts and part from a two-for-one rights offer. A total of A$1.012bn could be raised from the deal and 75% of the shares will be sold to the public.