The past week was a quiet one in a holiday-shortened week in Australia as much of the focus in the early part of the week was on the inaugural bond issue from the European Financial Stability Fund, and the latter part of the week was dominated by sovereign ratings' downgrades or warnings.The €5 billion EFSF issue received bids for nearly nine times that amount, with very strong demand coming from Asia, mainly Japan, which bought over 20 per cent of the issue. It was no surprise that the bonds rose strongly on the first day of trading.Among other bond placements of note was National Australia Bank's Samurai issue, totalling ¥56.3 billion, which followed in the footsteps of ANZ's similar offering the week before. NAB issued ¥50 billion of fixed rate notes at 31 basis points over Yen offer swaps, and ¥6.3 billion of a floating rate tranche at three-month Yen Libor plus 46 basis points. This was NAB's second issue of Samurai bonds in the last 12 months, and while the bank said this shows its commitment to one of the core global markets, it remains to be seen how much issuance there will be in the near-term in light of the surprise downgrade of Japan's credit rating.In issuance in the local market, Germany's KfW sold $300 million of its 6 per cent March 2017 bond, via reissue, at 88.25 basis points over its 6 per cent February 2017 Australian bond. The total issue size has now reached $2.05 billion. Earlier this month, KfW reissued $600 million of its January 2016 bond at 87 basis points over its April 2015 Australian bond.