Derivs - People and Markets

Ian Donaldson, managing director and fixed income salesman for Goldman Sachs, has left the firm.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is adamant that Senate legislation tackling over-the-counter derivatives should not leave any loopholes for market abuse. She spoke to Derivatives Week about her specific grievances with the language that’s surfaced in the bills so far.

Senate Banking Committee chairman Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) offers a description of an alternative swap execution facility in his latest bill that some market officials say is too narrow.

Roger Hirst, a senior equity derivatives flow salesman at Barclays Capital in London, has left the firm, and is expected to land at Deutsche Bank over the next few weeks, according to an official aware of his plans.

Dealers are lobbying for an exemption to a proposed law in Korea that would force all new over-the-counter instruments to be approved by a regulatory panel of the Korean Financial Investment Association (KOFIA) before being sold.

Terence Gan, a fixed income sales director for Citigroup in Singapore, has left the bank. Gan, who could not be reached, is expected to join Bank of America in a similar role, covering rates and fx flow sales to hedge funds.

The New York insurance committee is circulating within the state assembly a draft bill that would ban naked credit default swaps and require any seller of CDS to obtain a credit default insurance company license.

Brian Buchichio, head of investment-grade credit sales to hedge funds at Royal Bank of Scotland in Stamford, Conn., has left and is expected to join Credit Suisse in May.

A U.K. High Court judge ruled today that BGC Brokers, along with two of its senior executives in London, poached 10 employees from rival broker Tullett Prebon.

Hedge funds and corporates were buying short-term calls and puts on the euro/U.S. dollar this week, as sentiment ebbed and flowed over the potential European rescue of Greece and doubts over the U.S. recovery.

Overlay Asset Management’s SingleHedge Currency Options Fund bought a one-week call on the euro against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday with a notional of EUR15 million, in anticipation of increased implied volatility ahead of a Federal Open Market Committee rates announcement.

Remi Colinmaire, a former equity index trader from Goldman Sachs, and Serge Handjian, former head of equity derivatives trading for Japan at Barclays Capital, have hired a pair of over-the-counter derivatives staffers to their newly launched Singaporean firm RSR Capital Management.