Derivs - People and Markets

Citigroup, without admitting or denying allegations, has agreed to pay USD285 million to settle charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that Citigroup Global Markets had misled investors in collateralized debt obligation tied to the U.S. housing market.

Nine out of 10 top-tier swaps dealers and two-thirds of mid-tier dealers said profits have declined or have remained flat one year after implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, according to TABB Group.

Sovereign entities will find it harder to fund themselves at low rates following the agreement to ban so-called naked credit default swap trading on sovereign debt, according to market officials.

The Finanzmarktaufsicht, the Austrian financial supervision, has launched an investigation of Erste Group Bank and ceo Andreas Treichel for alleged derivatives accounting irregularities.

Investment-banking revenue at Goldman Sachs sank 33% in the third quarter from a year ago.

Credit default swap spreads on some U.S. banks widened sharply over the past three months, according to Fitch Solutions.

Citigroup said it is about two-thirds done in unwinding its Equity Principal Strategies proprietary-trading unit after it sustained losses in the third quarter.

ING has expanded its equity business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa with 11 new hires.

Nomura has hired named Munish Varma as global head of structured lending and special situations.

Lightspeed Financial has launched Lightspeed Institutional, a specialized prime brokerage platform for professional investors.

ReMATCH has launched a portfolio rebalancing service designed to mitigate risk from quanto credit default swaps that reference European sovereigns.

Nick Brown, an exchange-traded fund trader at Citigroup, has left the firm.