SYNDICATION FOR ELDERS NOTE FACILITY CLOSES
Syndication for Elders IXL Ltd's
<ELXA.S> 100 mln Australian dlr note issuance facility has been
completed, arranger Westpac Finance Asia Ltd said.
    It said the facility, which is half underwritten and half
non-underwritten, has been over-subscribed and underwriters'
allocations are reduced from the original commitments.
    The managers of the facility are Westpac, Bank of Montreal
Asia Ltd, BOT International (HK) Ltd, Commonwealth Bank of
Australia and Credit Industriel et Commercial de Paris. They
will be underwriting six mln dlrs each instead of 10 mln dlrs.
    Co-managers are Banque Bruxelles Lambert, Ka Wah Bank,
Kyowa Bank, Saitama Bank, Sanwa Bank and Yasuda Trust and
Banking Co Ltd. They will be underwriting three mln dlrs each
instead of five mln dlrs. BT Asia Ltd is junior co-manager with
a two mln dlr commitment.
    Westpac launched the facility early this month at 200 mln
dlrs but soon reduced it to 100 mln dlrs and amended the terms
due to the market's cool response. The underwriting margin was
raised to 10 basis points over the Australian dlr bank bill
rate. Originally the margin was set at 6.25 basis points for up
to 50 mln dlrs and at 2.5 basis points for the remainder.
 REUTER
