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As Christmas approaches all eyes start focusing on the league tables. Awards await the most successful dealers and with the top four all on over $16 billion everything is still to play for. But league table trades now start to play a more important role in a dealer's business decisions. And they bring into question the accuracy and validity of these very tables. MTNWeek's private placement league table only includes non-syndicated deals with a term of at least one year and an amount less than $250 million. It excludes special purpose vehicles and self-led deals. But dealers still seek trades that will push them up the tables unnaturally, even if they have to pay up. Salomon Smith Barney is top of the private placement league table. Richard Proudlove, Euro-MTNs at Salomon Smith Barney, says: "The consensus is that at the moment the league tables are the best measure available for comparing the placement ability of the different houses in the MTN market. And so if an opportunity to move up the tables arises, people will want to do so." If an issuer wanted to place paper at Libor+2, but an investor wanted to buy paper at Libor+6, for example, the dealer would pay the difference. The complaint is that this style of trade distorts the truth of the league table, putting those who don't specialize in short-term vanilla notes at a disadvantage. Lehman Brothers is one bank that claims not to do league table trades. Although this is the official line of many of the market dealers, the smaller banks claim that it is the biggest firms that do most of the league table trades. Brian McCarthy, head of Euro-MTNs at Lehman Brothers, says: "If you were to take all the one-year trades away it would turn the league tables into something very different, because much of this is bought business." And issuers may also have cause for concern. Issuance at the desired level may be compromised if a dealer sells trades to investors at more generous levels than the issuer stipulated. Alisdair McDougall, head of capital markets at Abbey National, says: "There's very little you can do about league table trades. But the only real difficulty is if the league table trades start to re-benchmark your natural levels." But not all issuers let league tables and league table trades worry them. Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW) is the biggest issuer of private notes this year, having issued $7.83 billion off 121 trades. Frank Czichowski, head of capital markets at KfW, says: "As an issuer we don't care where a dealer is ranked. If there is a trust there and we have a history between us, that is more important than league table position." Infrequent issuers, who lack knowledge about the market, might be more influenced by the league tables. But it is unlikely that any issuer in the market has mandated a dealer because of league table position alone. Other factors come into play, and so the relevance of the league tables, not just their credibility, is brought into question. JP Morgan holds 10th place in the private placement league table, and claims that because its merger with Chase Manhattan is yet to be finalized it has nothing to gain from doing league table trades. Robin Stoole, Euro-MTNs at JP Morgan, says: "MTN league tables are misrepresentative because they attempt to describe what is, by definition, a private market. I know from JP Morgan's point of view that many of our trades do not appear in the league tables, and the extent to which this is true for other houses is probably inconsistent." KfW has an internal set of league tables that it produces itself, ranking its dealers qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Czichowski, at KfW, says: "Quality of service - including primary and secondary market capabilities, advice with respect to new products and help with investor relations - is a better measure than issuance volume for determining a dealer's value. In this regard the view of other issuers and especially investors can be very beneficial." Certain suggestions have been made by dealers for improving the league table structure. These include making the minimum maturity three years, or weighting deals differently depending on their maturity. For example, a $100 million one-year note would be worth $100 million, but a $100 million five-year note would be worth $500 million in the league tables. It comes down to the value each trade represents for the issuer. But some firms will never be appeased. Stoole, at JP Morgan, says: "Even if you altered the parameters of the tables, for example by increasing the minimum maturity, the large houses would still find ways to distort the information."

Leak always thought JP Morgan had style. But then it thought JP Morgan would never get taken over. Wednesday night saw Morgan's swaps desk play host to almost the entire MTN market at Sugar Reef, London's biggest but certainly not its classiest restaurant. The venue is sandwiched between some rather seedy strip joints in Soho. But no matter - the usual MTN mafia were there in force: JP Morgan's swaps supremo Johnny Fine, UBS' Gavin Eddy, Citibank Credit Structure's Sean Murphy, Morgan Stanley's Klaus Svendsen and Richard Tynan, HSBC's Fergus Kiely and Anne-Marie Ganatra, Dresdner's Henry Nevstad and Deutsche's Chris Jones. We gather that Simon Hill, who surely must rank as one of the blessed inner circle, couldn't make it as he was hanging out at another party. Leak has been sworn to secrecy about the exact nature of the do that prevented Simon from attending. Let's just say tickets were like gold dust. But the JP Morgan party also attracted some of the less usual faces: Brian McCarthy, the pint-sized Clark Kent look-a-like from Lehman, and everyone's favourite accountant, Garrath Fulford from Chase. Garrath couldn't quite keep up with the pace and left before JP Morgan's Rupert Lewis rocked up at 11pm. So onlookers were denied the pleasure of seeing a Chase/JP Morgan MTN showdown. As the division of the MTN spoils from the merger has yet to be decided, Sugar Reef would have seemed a perfect place for a once-and-for-all shoot out. The one disappointment for many of the guests (step forward, Sean Murphy, Klaus Svendsen et al) was the absence of Gayle Turner, who does not return from her JP Morgan posting in New York for another two weeks. The MSDW crowd was only just recovering from the night before. On Tuesday its DCM team took over Tramp nightclub in Jermyn Street, which Leak considers only about one notch classier than Sugar Reef. Its usual clientele includes Rod Stewart and Liz Hurley on a good night. Richard Tynan thought he'd raise the tone a bit by doing a passable impression of John Travolta with a hip replacement on the dance floor. Luckily Deborah Loades was on hand to keep him and the boys in check until 3 in the morning. Daiwa's sushi and mulled wine party went with a bang but its DCM team, including MTN desk duo of Sam Amalou and Chieko Takenaka, has decided to go one better by spending tonight, Friday December 8, at the Science Museum. The latest issuer to jump ship is Jonathan Minor, who has left Westpac in London, but has yet to resurface back in his native Australia. We understand that he will be staying in London. While Westpac look for a replacement, Anna D'Ercole and Chris Bannister are running the show in the treasury. And we gather that Tim Cocks, the young whipper-snapper who had been holding the fort at MTNWatch while his colleagues jumped ship to join Pieter van Dyck in his news venture, has broken ranks. He has now left MTNWatch and joined Ian White and Joti Mangat at Capital Market Daily, which is currently sending out free emails to dealers. How generous.

The Lebanese Republic completed its fundraising for the year yesterday (Thursday) with a $400m four year bond issue lead managed by Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) and JP Morgan. This highlighted yet again the republic's ability to secure funding at far more favourable rates than comparable rated credits due to the strong bid of Lebanese and Gulf banks. Indeed, as the first dollar denominated deal from an emerging market issuer for several weeks, Lebanon is perhaps the only emerging market issuer which could have attained such a deal, priced inside existing secondary market spreads.

Linde Finance has hit the market twice with two 18-month euro40 million trades that will be issued on the 7 and 18 of December 2000. The 18 December note pays interest semi-annually. All but one of Linde Finance's 14 trades this year have been done in the third quarter. The one trade, in June this year was a euro1 billion 7-year note which paid a final coupon of 6.375%.

Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz (LRP) continues its penchant for Nikkei-linked deals. Yesterday, Monday December 4 it finalised a ¥7 billion ($63.13 million)one-year trade, which had been launched before the selling period as a ¥1 billion note. Its issue date is December 20 2000 and it matures on December 20 2001. It pays a single final coupon of 5% but there is no principal protection, with a knock-in option when the Nikkei hits "slightly below 12,000", according to Manfred Steyer, LRP's head of new issues and syndicate. Since the end of October, LRP has concentrated exclusively on short-dated yen and three-year sterling paper.

Merita Bank made its first claim in the five- to ten-year sector with a $30 million note that matures in June 2007. It will be issued on December 13 and the final coupon is 7.25%. Although the issuer was unwilling to divulge any details, there is a structure attached to the note for the preceding coupons. And on the same day two 10-year public notes were issued by Nordbanken via Deutsche Bank. Merita Bank is part of an entity called MeritaNordbanken, which is the result of a three-way merger between Merita Bank, Nordbanken and Unibank. Merita Bank has issued one other time this year, a $130 million eight-month trade paying 6.98%. It was a fixed-rate note. Ola Littorin, first vice president at MeritaNordbanken, says it is likely that trades similar to the one that will be issued on December 13 will be issued again in the future.

Bahrain Emirates Bank International and HSBC have signed banks into the $85m three year term loan for United Gulf Bank. After a successful syndication, the facility was oversubscribed and increased from $60m.

Mitsui OSK Lines has dropped Fuji International as a dealer from its $700 million Euro-MTN programme. Norinchukin International and Shinkin International have been added to the dealer panel. It's oustanding trades are all denominate in yen and amount to $239.72 million.

*David Robins has quit after ING Groep announced a review of its investment banking operation, ING Barings. His deputy as head of investment banking, Malcolm le May, has also decided to leave. A transitional leadership has been appointed. Michael Tilmant, vice chair of the ING group executive board, and Hessel Lindenbergh, another member of the group executive board, are to take over.

Nestle Capital has increased the limit off its euro4 billion multicurrency global commercial CP programme to euro8 billion. Credit Suisse First Boston has been added to the dealer panel and National Westminster has been dropped. Nestle Australia has also been added as an issuer.

Market report: Compiled by Gerard Perrignon, RBC DS Global Markets, London. Tel: +44 20 7653 4557

Nomura Europe Finance has increased the ceiling of its $4 billion Euro Note programme to $5 billion. There is $3.36 billion outstanding off 276 notes, the majority of which are in yen.