Freddie Mac, the US mortgage refinancing agency, will sell $6bn (€6.43bn) worth of bonds on January 9, in one of the year's first jumbo financing exercises.

Despite the bleak mood in global credit markets and a lack of interest on the buy-side, a handful of issuers with large funding requirements are already committed to fundraising in 2001. One of those is Freddie Mac, which will sell $6bn of five-year bonds off its Reference Note programme in January.