Derivs - Equity

The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) has established a pre-funded $1bn committed repurchase facility with a leading pension fund in order to increase the central counterparty’s overall liquidity resources from $2bn to $3bn.

BGC Partners has retaliated once more within hours of CME Group announcing an increased two-tier, front end-loaded tender offer for GFI Group at $5.85 per share, with the interdealer broker offering a fully financed, all-cash tender offer of $6.10 per share.

CME Group has once again increased its two-tier, front end-loaded tender offer for GFI Group to $5.85 per share, matching BGC Partners’ contingent $5.85 per share all-cash offer announced on 15 January. This price escalation represents the newest development in a nearly eight month bidding war for the firm, and nearly a $0.40 per share escalation since 15 January.

A memorandum of understanding from the European Securities and Markets Authority recognising the Hong Kong clearing regime as equivalent to the European regime under European Markets Infrastructure Regulation is not enough to avoid fragmenting the market, according to lawyers, who said ESMA must prioritise the key issue of US clearing house equivalence.

CME Group has increased its two-tier, front end-loaded tender offer for GFI Group to $5.60 per share, matching BGC Partners’ $5.60 per share all-cash offer announced on 14 January. This price escalation represents the newest development in a nearly eight-month bidding war for the firm.

What began as a curious geopolitical squall has become a major storm, affecting not just the markets on which it falls but the weather in other asset classes as well. Risk premiums that remained low until the end of 2014 have finally responded to the pressure.

New BNP Paribas investment bank boss Yann Gérardin is an equity derivatives man through and through, having built the business from scratch since he joined in 1987.

Concerns are rising among market participants that the European Securities and Markets Authority is showing a lack of understanding of request-for-quote and other trading protocols as it prepares new rules. If ESMA imposes overly-restrictive transparency regulations on these technical systems, market participants may refrain from using them, according to lawyers.

Euronext has launched plain vanilla options on six of its iShares exchange-traded funds on the firm's Amsterdam derivatives market in response to investor demand.

Hedge funds and broker dealers are set to benefit from the latest suite of updates to MSCI’s equity risk models, which gives equity derivatives investors the ability to track underlying securities and identify crowding that could cause volatility.

End-users trading swaps could be exempted from posting margin on swaps not cleared by registered derivatives clearing organizations under a new Congressional rule amending the Dodd-Frank Act. Despite flaws in the original drafting, the amendment to the rule would be a substantive change to the legislation and would clarify the margin posting process, according to lawyers.

The first green structured note linked to an equity index by a call option designed for retail investors closed last week with a total subscription amount of $91m, making it the largest public offer for a non-Euro denominated equity index linked bond in Belgium and Luxembourg in 2014. The green bond, a seven year structured note issued by the World Bank, was sold with a zero coupon plus a call option on a basket of stocks from ethical companies.