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* MBNA's fifth credit card deal of the year blew out this week as Lehman Brothers brought an $882.4m floater in response to a reverse enquiry. The Series 1998-E issue has a 9.7 year soft bullet expected maturity -- its $750m of 'A' notes priced at 14.5bp over three month Libor. Class 'B', worth $66.2m and rated A2/A+, came at 33bp over, while the privately placed 'C' tranche offered the same amount of triple-B rated securities.

NIKKO Europe's principal finance group has added two more UK motorway service area (MSA) companies to the RoadChef portfolio it bought in May. RoadChef will pay £80m for Blue Boar, which has three functioning MSAs, and Take A Break, which operates one site which is one of the largest in the UK. Nikko is buying all the shares in the companies from venture capital group 3i and their existing managers.

The 1990s have provided a wealth of lessons for risk managers.

ONE OF Asia's few remaining vibrant debt markets has been closed following moves by the Taiwanese government to suspend supranational issuance in its domestic bond market. Local bankers said that the central bank put the ban in place to cut off one of the few available avenues of speculation against the Taiwanese currency. Said one: "The government has a sense of speculative sentiment prevailing in the market and will not approve any new supranational issues until the currency situation settles down."

INDICATIONS THAT the summer lull has descended on the Euromarkets grew this week as issuance in most currencies fell to a low point for the year. The sterling sector was one exception to the rule, providing investors with £500m of long-dated supply and £150m of four year bonds, all issued on the same day.

* India's UTI Bank is planning an IPO to raise Rp735m, with shares to be priced at Rp21 per share. No timescale is yet known for the deal. DSP Merrill Lynch is lead manager. * SBI Capital Markets has revised its memorandum of understanding with Lehman Brothers. The document focused solely on the management of GDRs for Indian companies and created an exclusive relationship between the two entities. SBI Capital is now free from this constraint when pitching for GDR accounts and can ally itself with other banks.

ROCLA Industries' IPO will price at the low end of the A$4 to A$4.75 range today (Friday). Earlier in the week speculation had centred around a price of A$4.50 but a tailing off of investor interest led to a more cautious approach being taken by lead managers BT Alex Brown and Credit Suisse First Boston. "At A$4 the firm is something of a bargain," said one banker, "but closer to A$4.50 foreign buyers couldn't see a reason to be involved when there are plenty of other building materials companies available cheaper." A total of 79m secondary shares and 39m new shares are being sold, with 70% of the deal due to go to institutions. Yesterday (Thursday) almost one half of the major fund managers in Australia were thought to have put in firm bids for shares, according to bankers.

AUTO company China Brilliance was expected to price its shares at the close of New York trade yesterday (Thursday) toward the end of a difficult week in Asian markets after Moody's announced a change in Japan's ratings outlook and Fed chief Alan Greenspan warned of the severity and depth of the regional crisis. Bankers said that the book was just covered but rivals expressed amazement that lead manager Merrill Lynch undertook the deal without a back-up buyer. Speculation circulating Hong Kong during the week that the parent company of China Brilliance was prepared to buy unsold shares was fiercely denied by those close to the deal.