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The one-year Swiss franc sector has attracted a handful of European banks, with most opting to issue trades that are not eligible for MTNWeek's league table, maturing one-day short of the full year. Commerzbank has sold its 17th Swiss franc deal of the year with a Sfr12 million ($7.3 million) note, which matures December 20 2001. The issue date is December 21 2000. It pays a single final coupon of 11.5%. Credit Lyonnais Finance (Guernsey) is issuing a Sfr10 million and a Sfr15 million trade December 28. Both mature December 27 2001. The Sfr10 million trade pays a single coupon of 9.35%; the Sfr15 million trade pays 11.25%. HypoVereinsbank has gone for a trade that has a full one-year tenor, issuing a Sfr10 million note, December 14, which matures Deceber 14 2001. It pays a 5.5% coupon. However redemption is either paid in cash or 14,457 shares of Civic Financial Services at a strike price of 691.7064.

Orix USA Corp will issue two ¥5 billion ($45.14 million) trades off its $3 billion Euro-MTN programme on December 21. Both are fixed rate and bring the number of trades issued by Orix USA to 14 this year, all in yen. One of the trades goes out to June 21 2000, the other matures a few weeks' later: July 18 2000. Liam Meehan, MTNs at Orix's Dublin office, explains that most of Orix's trades are dealt out of Tokyo and this explains why yen predominates. Meehan says: "We usually back out of currency transactions and swap into US dollar."

* Süddeutsche Bodencreditbank AG Amount: Eu100m Hypothekenpfandbrief series 308

* Volkswagen Financial Services NV Guarantor: Volkswagen Financial Services AG

Strong retail demand helped Portugal Telecom (PT) raise Eu2.2bn this week, despite a lack of interest from foreign investors, who continue to ignore the Portuguese market. The stock was priced at Eu9.4, in line with the closing price last Thursday. The shares rose above issue price on the first day of trading on Monday and stayed there, closing yesterday (Thursday) at Eu9.56. Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, BES Investimento and La Caixa led the deal.

Pinault Printemps Redoute (PPR) launched an Eu250m three year floating rate offering yesterday (Thursday) via lead managers HSBC CCF and Natexis Banques Populaires, which were awarded the mandate last Friday. Priced at par, the paper yielded 55bp over Euribor at the re-offer level, which is in line with earlier price talk. By the end of the first day, the lead managers reported healthy sales at between plus 55bp and 58bp, with some investors still awaiting authorisation for credit lines. Appetite was keen, as few investors hold much PPR paper, but there was concern over the timing of the offering so close to the year end.

Railtrack will set up a Euro-MTN programme after eyeing the product for nearly 18 months, as first reported in CPMonth issue 6. Railtrack owns almost all of Britain's railway infrastructure, including track, signalling, bridges, tunnels, stations and depots. This is despite experiencing some difficulty after the privatisation of Britain's railway network in the 1980s. Deutsche Bank has been awarded the arrangership for the Euro-MTN programme which is expected to be euro3 billion ($3.37 billion) in size. The facility is being set up in conjunction with a $750 million Euro-CP programme which was signed in December 1997 and which Deutsche Bank also arranges. Together the facilities will be used to finance a £

Portman Building society has made only its third appearance in the market this year. It plumped for its favourite style of trade: a medium-length sterling FRN. "We were looking for three-, four- or five-year funding," says Gil Rosen, treasurer of Portman. And it went for a £

Renault Credit International has increased the limit off its euro4 billion Euro-MTN programme to euro6 billion. The Merrill Lynch arranged facility was isgned in 1994 and has over $3.4 billion outstanding.

Corus this week announced the resignation of its CEOs, Fokko van Duyne and John Bryant, following the group's recent poor performance. The Anglo-Dutch steel group said that "further major restructuring will have to take place in the UK". Recent company news has not been received well in the bond markets. Analysts say that they do not expect to see much improvement after the company announced UK losses of £226m for the first six months of the year and there are expectations of further significant losses.

Rio Tinto has issued its sixth one-year note with a $49 million trade that matures on December 11 2001. The FRN, which pays interest quarterly, will be issued on December 11 this year. Despite the length of the issue Ian Ratnage, head of treasury at Rio Tinto told MTNWeek last week that he is looking at longer dated issues. He said: "We will continue to issue opportunistically and are now seeing opportunities in the five-year maturity." Rio Tinto has $189.03 million outstanding off its $2 billion Euro-MTN programme. Ian Ratnage said that it was unlikely that the issuer would ever hit the programmes issue limit in its first year.

Sachsen LB Europe has been added as an issuer to Sachsen's euro5 billion ( $4.46 billion) Euro-MTN programme. Merrill Lynch is the arranger of the programme, which has almost $1 billion outstanding off 10 trades.