Derivs - People and Markets

Clearing house LCH has hired Isabelle Girolami as its chief executive. She comes from Crédit Agricole’s corporate and investment bank (CIB), where she was deputy CEO.

Leaders of the big US investment banks were cautiously optimistic about upcoming investment banking activity, despite a poor second quarter across their capital markets divisions.

Futures brokerage R.J. O’Brien has appointed Simon Prangnell to head up its new affiliate company in France.

Andrew Bailey, CEO of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, said on Monday that progress was needed in the next “year or so” in moving the loan market away from Libor. He added that the consent solicitation undertaken by Associated British Ports to switch an FRN to Sonia was a model for other borrowers.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has fined trade repository Regis–TR €56,000 for failing to provide direct and immediate access to details of derivative contracts to regulators.

Former Lloyds Banking Group trader Christophe Coutte will join RBC Capital Markets as head of macro trading Europe.

Everyone had been expecting another strategy overhaul from Deutsche Bank, but no-one expected the depth of the cuts to be so brutal. The bank is to end much of its equities business and refocus on corporate banking, and shed nearly 20,000 jobs. But observers are wary about the bank’s ability to restructure without inflicting more pain than it has forecast.

Interest rate swaps (IRS) trading platform trueEx has announced plans to close its doors after coming under pressure from an alleged bank boycott.

Language to prevent ‘net short’ debt activist investors manipulating distressed corporates to benefit CDS positions could prove ineffective in bond documentation, shutting down the changes almost as soon as they have been introduced in the market.

Deutsche Bank has made deep cuts to its equity sales and trading business, as part of an aggressive restructuring plan. The bank has said it intends to retain a “focused equity capital markets business”, but in practice this means a significant retrenchment, with a strict focus on supporting Deutsche’s core clients in Europe and the US.

Deutsche Bank's far-reaching restructuring plan to pull out of equity sales and trading and streamline the investment bank elsewhere involves a tie-up with BNP Paribas for parts of its business. The troubled German lender also signalled the advantage of a recent rule change to additional tier one coupon payments in allowing it to proceed with the changes.

Members of the US House Committee on Agriculture reserved harsh words for a chief European regulator on Wednesday, in a sign that the cross-border spat over derivatives clearing has not yet subsided.