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ARGENTINE oil company YPF broke a four month drought of blue chip Latin corporate bond issuance in the dollar market this week with a blow-out $350m five year Yankee bond priced more than 100bp inside the Republic of Argentina yield curve. The deal, led by Credit Suisse First Boston, was increased from $300m and launched at just 158bp over Treasuries at a time when Argentina 2003s were trading around 265bp and outstanding YPF 2004s were at 177bp. Although it widened out slightly to around 162bp on the back of a weak Treasury market, bankers considered the YPF bonds to be fairly priced.

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THE MUCH delayed $500m receivables backed financing for Yukos arranged by Crédit Lyonnais, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs is finally progressing with news that the arrangers have appointed a small group of co-arrangers. Between three and five banks will form the co-arranging group -- the deadline for commitment passed on February 27 with three banks signed up and two more likely to commit over the next week.

TRANSNET, South Africa's parastatal transport company, is set to sign a $1bn Euro-MTN programme which will make it the first South African issuer to set up such a facility. Deutsche Morgan Grenfell is arranging the programme. Transnet is a relatively new name in the international bond markets. Its debut Euromarket deal in July last year was a R150m three year transaction. Its second deal, a R2bn 30 year zero coupon bond launched this week, will be the first to be documented under the Euro-MTN facility

AUSTRALIA'S St George Bank will launch its debut international securitisation at the start of next week with the sale of up between $450m and $500m of mortgage backed securities. Lead manager Deutsche Morgan Grenfell would not comment on pricing or the progress of the deal, but participants who attended one of the series of roadshows held this week described the transaction as well received.

MERRILL LYNCH completed the securitisation of a new class of asset this week when it priced the Lit475bn offering backed by the revenues of the film library revenues of Italian media group Cecchi Gori. Structured film-based transactions have been launched in the past -- such as for Walt Disney -- but these were participation bonds linked to revenues from movies yet to be replaced.

GREENWICH NatWest has fought off fierce competition to win the mandate for the first ever securitisation of UK student loans. After months of bidding, the contest boiled down to a straight fight between Greenwich NatWest and a joint Barclays Capital/Goldman Sachs bid.

MBNA has refined its Cards securitisation programme with the launch of the first ever fixed rate sterling asset backed by sterling receivables. The £237.5bn transaction for Cards 5 -- Chester Asset Receivables Dealings No5 -- was launched last Friday by lead manager JP Morgan.

MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter launched a $2.4bn refinancing for the Airplanes Group yesterday (Thursday) after receiving SEC approval for the securitisation. Airplanes had been expected to return to the market -- it had a $850m 'A1' class tranche of its $4bn securitisation from March 1996 falling due on March 16 -- but the issuer has decided to take up the option to refinance other asset classes.

* US finance company GMAC has made a bold step into the UK mortgage market with the purchase of Birmingham Midshires Mortgage Services. GMAC will focus on providing non-standard mortgages, a growing sector of the UK market. The purchase was made through GMAC subsidiary Residential Funding Corporation, and the new company will trade as RFC Mortgage Services Ltd. RFC aims to generate business by developing links with mortgage originators --including the Birmingham Midshires itself -- as well as purchasing mortgage portfolios.

BANKERS TRUST will officially launch the £535m securitisation for Punch Taverns next week. The proceeds will be used to acquire the majority of the leased pub estate of UK brewer Bass, and will be the second such securitisation in the space of a few weeks .

The volatility swap can be viewed as a logical next step in the application of derivatives to portfolio management.