Derivs - Equity

Vuk Bulajic, head of U.S. equity derivatives at Natixis, has joined institutional broker-dealer Ticonderoga Securities to launch an equity derivatives desk in New York.

RBC Capital Markets today issued USD7.8 million in principal-protected notes linked to a Société Générale proprietary commodity index.

As over-the-counter derivatives pros debate the dangers of CME Clearing and ICE Trust not achieving interoperability—where CCPs face each other, allowing customers to choose where they clear trades—Kim Taylor, president of CME Clearing, said she is open to the idea conceptually, but troubled by the potential risks.

Société Générale is marketing hybrid structured notes featuring both credit-default swaps and equity index options to high-net-worth investors in Latin America.

Richard Zack, head of U.S. equity derivatives sales at National Bank of Canada, has joined Prudential Bache Global Commodities Group as a senior v.p. tasked with developing its structured products business.

Simon Yates, co-head of European equities at Credit Suisse in London, has taken a sabbatical. The bank has handed sole responsibility for the division to his co-head, Stephen Dainton.

Researchers at Goldman Sachs have offered an estimate of risk reduction from clearing over-the-counter derivatives. Specifically, they calculate that introducing clearing for dealer-to-dealer trades will yield 16 times the counterparty risk reduction than would be achieved for trades between non-dealers.

UBS has hired William Ortner, head of structured finance at Structured Investment Management, as its co-head of structured equity capital markets for the Americas.

Call overwriting on both the S&P 500 index and individual U.S. equities has been picking up lately, as institutional investors hunt for more yield.

Aurelien Bessot, the former head of exotic equity derivatives trading at Bank of America in London, is preparing to launch a fund.

Amid dwindling demand for over-the-counter equity derivatives, Société Générale is touting its Lyxor Asset Management managed account products platform to institutional investors in Hong Kong to lure them towards more sophisticated hedging strategies.

Some swap counterparties to Lehman Brothers are arguing that they shouldn’t have to make payments, even after the U.S. bankruptcy court recently ordered one such firm, Metavante Corp., to pay up. At issue is whether a firm with an open swap must keep making payments while Lehman is not making its scheduled payments.