Derivs - People and Markets

Delays in approving a Taiwanese master agreement between offshore structured products issuers, their onshore agents and distributors have brought the market to a virtual standstill, practitioners say.

Structured products provider Arc Capital & Income will be rebranded Merchant Plan Managers following its acquisition by London-based investment advisory firm Merchant Capital.

Stephen Patterson, director of structured credit sales to hedge funds at Standard Chartered in Singapore, has left.

London boutique StormHarbour Partners has hired Oliver Borek, who most recently headed up structured products marketing for Germany and Austria at Banque AIG, as a director in client solutions.

London-based Cater Allen Private Bank, a subsidiary of Grupo Santander, has launched its fifth FTSE-linked, two-term capital guaranteed structure.

China’s foreign exchange regulator has ordered all qualified foreign institutional investors to submit details of any structures referencing China A-shares that have been sold to non-licensed foreign customers.

A corporate governance review into British and foreign banks released today by the U.K. Treasury will not recommend that banks disclose the names of traders who earn over GBP1 million (USD1.6 million)—despite a recommendation otherwise by City minister Paul Myners.

Nomura Securities International has hired Jason Pealy for its G10 fx options trading desk in New York.

Douglas Renfield-Miller, a former executive v.p. at Ambac Financial Group and ex-ceo of Ambac Assurance U.K., is advising structured credit fund manager Primus Asset Management.

Five-year credit default swaps on Dubai sovereign debt gapped out dramatically today following news state-owned investment company, Dubai World, which has USD59 billion in liabilities, had asked creditors for an extension on its debt repayments.

Remi Colinmaire, a former equity index trader from Goldman Sachs, and Serge Handjian, the former head of equity derivatives trading for Japan at Barclays Capital, have formed an equity prop and market making outfit, RSR Capital, in Singapore.

Corporates have been buying up short-term calls on the euro against the U.S. dollar this week, following results of a survey by the Munich-based IFO Institute for Economic Research showing rising confidence in commerce and news that gross domestic product in Germany rose 0.7% for the third quarter.