Delacote's prop team, which will consist of a handful of traders, will sit between the exotics and flow business to pick up arbitrage opportunities. Amellal said the market has now developed enough liquidity to warrant a dedicated team.
Delacote is widely credited with making BNP one of the top Asian credit derivatives houses in Asia. BNP was a pioneer in the Japanese credit derivatives market, creating one of the first yen-denominated synthetic collateralized debt obligations and creating the CJ50 index of credit derivatives with Goldman Sachs and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (DW, 8/25, 11/15/01).
He did not, however, achieve this without controversy. "He's been an aggressive and outspoken competitor," said a credit head at a rival firm. Delacote riled the Asian market when he threatened to call in the regulator last year after competitors allegedly front-ran a convertible bond issue by taking positions in the credit-default swap market (DW, 5/20). He sent a Bloomberg message to the major market makers that stated, "This heavy trading reflects leaks of information and unfair trading." The message continued "we unfortunately will have no other choice than alerting regulators of any massive and unusual trading before the official announcements of a new CB issue."
Emmanuel Ramambason, exotic credit derivatives trader, has assumed Delacote's responsibilities. Delacote will also head BNP's credit derivatives options business in London.
