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Rumour has it that competition in the programme originating world is hotting up. Headhunters are calling discretely around the market. Deborah Loades at Morgan Stanley is looking for an assistant. Salomon Smith Barney has also admitted interest in anyone with a smile and a pitch book. And now Merrills is looking. Michael Stump, who worked with Rudy Diotallevi at Merrills, has jumped ship. This is not great timing because ever since Mr Arranger himself, Scott Church, left MTNs in March to go to private equity, the competitive firm has been flagging in the arranging league tables. And another ex-star of the market has deserted debt. Olivier Jalouneix, le grand fromage de MTNs at MSDW, has moved into equities. And though the debt markets will miss him dearly, the little Bambis of Scotland will not. Who will take his place at this year's Citibank Credit Strucutres' huntin-shootin-fishin' weekend? We hear Olivier declined the wimp's option of golf and happily shot anything that moved. But MSDW's new boy Richard Tynan lacks that killer instinct. He'd be too worried about getting blood on his loafers.

Matt Carter has only just found himself an MTN desk at DLJ and it looks like he may be moving back to Canary Wharf to join his old buddies at CSFB. The question is whether this merger will leave space - all on one desk - for such stars as Simon Hill and Julie Edinburgh from CSFB, as well as the lovely Luca Favero, who is the structure supremo at DLJ. We shall keep you informed. One group definitely moving to Canary Wharf next month is Peter Jackson and his team from Salomon Smith Barney. And they are dreading it. Peter, who lives in Richmond (not far from Wales for those of you rusty on UK geography), Richard Proudlove and Marc Falconer are loth to leave the glitzy world of west London. No more popping out for a bite to eat at the Ivy or San Lorenzo. And to add insult to injury the new building at the Wharf is designed by Foster & Partners, responsible for London's wobbly Millennium Bridge. We hear Peter, having a look around the bank, got a severe bout of vertigo trying to cross one of the flimsy gangways that stretch 17 floors above the trading desks. We hope sick bags will be provided.

Lehman Brothers this week announced that it is to increase the cut-off point for bonds included in its global aggregate index, two days before Salomon Smith Barney announced the introduction of its new World Broad-Investment Grade (WorldBIG) Bond Index. The timing of the announcement by Lehman Brothers may not have been coincidental, as the cut-off point for bonds in the WorldBIG index is $500m - far higher than the $150m minimum size that previously applied to Lehman's global aggregate index.

Marconi will next week launch a two tranche Yankee of up to $1.5bn, making the telecoms equipment supplier one of the few corporates to access the Yankee market this year. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter will lead manage the 10 and 30 year tranches. According to a banker close to the deal, the company has decided to issue a Yankee rather than a global bond because US investors are usually the only buyers of 30 year paper.

Bahrain

Chase Flemings, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and Schroder Salomon Smith Barney look set to launch the first deal of September, a $750m secondary offer for London listed mining group Billiton. The issue will finance half the cost of the $1.49bn acquisition of Alcoa's 56% interest in the Worsley alumina plant in Australia. Alumina is the intermediate stage in the production of aluminium.

* SAP Systems Integration (SAP SI) will announce a price range for its Neuer Markt IPO today (Friday), which is expected to raise about Eu170m. The company, formed three months ago by the integration of three companies in which SAP held stakes - SAP Solutions, SRS, and Sapse - will issue 9.533m shares, via Commerzbank and HypoVereinsbank. Of these, 4.8m will be new. The deal will dilute SAP's stake from 62% to 54%, although the software company is not selling any shares. Engineering and electronics group Siemens will reduce its holding from 16% to 7%, and Neuer Markt listed Software will also sell part of its stake, taking its holding down from 20% to 11%. The remaining shareholder, Achim Josefy, will retain a stake of about 2%, leaving 26% in freefloat.

Czech Republic Moody's has assigned a Baa1 long term foreign currency rating to the City of Brno.

ABN Amro Rothschild and Goldman Sachs have begun premarketing the postponed Eu400m-Eu500m IPO of Dutch company New Skies Satellites, which will list in Amsterdam and on Nasdaq. The issue was shelved earlier this year as comparable stocks nose-dived in the post-March technology stock sell-off. The IPO was at the time expected to raise between Eu400m and Eu600m. It is unclear if the IPO will have a secondary component, as had been expected originally.

* Tractebel Invest International BV

Market report:

Osterreichische Postsparkasse (PSK) has increased the ceiling off its euro2 billion ($1.8 billion) Euro-MTN programme to euro4 billion. The programme, arranged is UBS Warburg, it was signed in 1998.