Derivs - Credit

Five-year credit default swaps on Nordic financial names gapped out this morning after it was revealed yesterday that Swedbank and SEB could steep losses.

John Gousias, a senior credit flow trader at Royal Bank of Scotland in New York, has moved over to the firm’s London offices as European head of investment grade flow credit trading.

A Japanese credit determinations committee of International Swaps and Derivatives Association has decided that Aiful’s recent request to suspend interest payment on debt it owes did not constitute a bankruptcy or credit event.

Colm Ryan, the ex-head of credit sales to hedge funds at Royal Bank of Scotland, has joined Phoenix Partners as head of the interdealer broker’s European high-grade business in London.

Lazard Capital Markets is starting a prime brokerage unit in New York and has hired a staffer to run it. The individual’s name and details on the newly created role could not be learned.

London-based Meteor Asset Management has launched its second offshore structure with capital returns based on the performance of the FTSE 100 and the Standard & Poor’s 500.

Aldous Birchall, a director in credit default swaps index trading at Royal Bank of Scotland in London, left the firm last week.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association is reopening its Small Bang protocol to allow new firms that have been set up since the last round in July a chance to incorporate the new auction settlement terms for restructuring credit events.

Buysiders have begun looking selectively at negative basis trades again on account of the basis between credit default swaps and cash bonds having widened about 20 basis points over the past month. While the move is slight, it’s prompted some hedge funds to put on trades after unwinding many of their positions last year.

Georges Gedeon, a former executive director in M&A and corporate finance at Goldman Sachs in London, and Jean-Luc Biamonti, the ex-European head of retail investment banking, have set up a hedge fund focusing on credit and merger arbitrage.

Charlie Shah, an investment-grade bond and credit default swaps trader at RBS Securities in Stamford, Conn., has left to join Bank of America in New York.

Victor Gauvin, a director in correlation trading at UBS in London, has left and joined Barclays Capital in a newly created role.