One of the most remarkable results of the credit crunch has been the removal of the formerly ubiquitous league table trade. It is now very difficult to purchase market share via this method. How important is a firm’s market share to winning business now compared to a year ago?

Jim Esposito, head of syndicate and debt financing at Goldman Sachs
Market share remains a consideration, but sound advice and execution are currently the most important variables in the decision tree.

Jean-François Mazaud, deputy head of capital raising and financing at SG
This remains important for two main reasons: issuers want to mitigate their execution risk as much as possible and naturally prefer to work with banks that are in the flows. Liquidity being scarce, having access to a large investor base enables banks to detect pockets of demand and build reverse inquiries on a systematic basis for the benefit of issuers who can build their refinancing policy on a more opportunistic basis. This implies, of course, consistency in the resources allotted to the business, be it origination, syndication, sales, trading or credit research.

Siddharth Prasad, head of EMEA FIG capital markets and financing at Merrill Lynch Market share...