By John Weavers

SYDNEY, Feb 16 (IFR) - The Coca-Cola Company (Aa3/AA/A+) looks set to provide the first real test of the year for the corporate Kangaroo market, having mandated Deutsche Bank to arrange investor meetings from March 7 for a potential debut trade.

The stellar A$2.25 billion ($1.59 billion) triple-tranche issue last August from Apple, rated Aa1/AA+ (Moody's/S&P), raised hopes that Australia would become a key second-tier destination for overseas credits, alongside the sterling, Swiss franc and Canadian dollar markets.

Intel, rated A1/A+ (Moody's/S&P), followed three months later with a slightly underwhelming inaugural A$800 million dual-tranche sale, which, despite being the second-largest corporate Kangaroo, failed to match hopes for a A$1 billion-plus issue.

Intel's average order sizes were back at the typical A$20 million-A$50 million levels rather than the bumper Apple tickets of up to A$150 million, as the world's biggest chip-maker struggled amid a more difficult market backdrop than the one Apple had faced.

Limited credit analyst coverage among Australian fund managers also weighed on the Intel trade, while several Asian investors felt the pick-up offered over Intel's US dollar curve was insufficient to compensate for the lower liquidity in the Australian market. The latter is a particularly important consideration during times of global market stress.

Local funds are more familiar with Coca Cola, especially with regional bottler Coca-Cola Amatil, rated A3/A- (Moody's/S&P), having previously issued Australian dollar bonds, including a A$150 million seven-year MTN in November 2012.

With the Aussie dollar, a proxy for China risk, now trading at around 70 US cents after being near parity between October 2010 and October 2014, a Kangaroo issue must now exceed A$700 million to reach the equivalent US dollar benchmark size of $500 million.

It will be a very impressive result if Coca-Cola matches the size of its first Matterhorn transaction in September 2015, a SFr1.325 billion ($1.345 billion) three-trancher.

Coca-Cola debuted in the euro market 12 months earlier with a 2 billion euro ($2.23 billion) dual-trancher and followed up with a whopping 8.5 billion euro five-note issue last February.

The company, historically a large issuer, printed its last US dollar transaction in October 2015 with a $4 billion SEC-registered three-part senior unsecured offering.

Deutsche Bank's role as arranger for the Coca-Cola roadshow underlines its position as the go-to international bank for US corporate blue chips looking to visit Down Under.

Deutsche was joint lead manager for the Apple Kangaroo with CBA and Goldman Sachs and also led the Intel debut alongside Westpac.

Although the Korea National Oil Corporation A$325 million three-year floating-rate-note sale on February 2 was technically 2016's first corporate Kangaroo, the state-owned company is seen as sovereign rather than corporate risk, while only 2 percent of the bonds were allocated to Australasian investors.

(Reporting By John Weavers; editing by Dharsan Singh and Daniel Stanton)