Derivs - People and Markets

Life settlements specialist Coventry Capital has opened an office in Sydney, its second in the Asia Pacific region.

The credit event triggered by the debt restructuring of Japanese lender Aiful has prompted the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to introduce a protocol that will standardize certain provisions of legacy single name Japanese corporate credit default swaps.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, the financial messaging company headquartered in La Hulpe, Belgium, is working on a messaging system for collateral management issues.

Michel Barnier, EU internal market commissioner-designate, who will lead derivatives regulation in Europe, told European ministers in Brussels this afternoon that regulation of over-the-counter derivatives market will not be delayed if the U.S. and Asian authorities haven’t implemented similar regulation by year-end.

Liquidity in emerging market credit default swaps was higher than that of developed markets towards the end of last year, according to the latest Global CDS report from Fitch Solutions.

UBS has picked up a number of senior credit staffers formerly at Credit Suisse as it looks to expand its trading capabilities in distressed names.

A handful of banks have been lobbying Indian regulators to open a retail equity derivatives warrants market. Some issuers who have been in nascent talks with the Securities Exchange Board of India include JPMorgan and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Heiko Ebens, the former global head of equity derivatives research at Merrill Lynch, has joined volatility trading firm Capstone Holdings Group as global head of research in New York.

Sunil Hirani, founder of Creditex, the interdealer broker and technology platform sold to IntercontinentalExchange in 2008 for USD513 million, is leaving ICE to focus on new entrepreneurial opportunities.

Jeffrey Fittipaldi, an equity derivatives sales trader at brokerage Pali Capital in New York, has joined Knight Capital Group in Jersey City, N.J.

Rumit Mehta, a senior credit default swaps trader in industrials at BNP Paribas in London, has left the firm.

Michael Vasseghi, the former head of fixed income and commodities structuring and strategic solutions at Merrill Lynch, has joined UBS in Stamford, Conn., as the firm looks to revamp derivatives structuring capabilities in the U.S.