Derivs - People and Markets

Bank of New York Mellon formally launched its MarginDIRECT system Monday, a tool that helps derivative dealers manage margin requirements and provides additional liquidity.

Some London-based Dresdner Kleinwort staffers are preparing to take legal action after an expected EUR400 million bonus payout was slashed Wednesday. Derivative staffers are among them.

Yap Chin Yee, former head of structured credit markets Asia for Nomura in Hong Kong, has set up his own hedge fund called Gemini Capital.

Michael Devlin, a director in structured products marketing at BNP Paribas in New York, recently left the firm.

Credit default swaps on General Motors have been relatively unmoved since Tuesday, despite mounting uncertainty over further U.S. government aid. “There are a lot of complications around whether the deal gets done,” concluded one New York trader of the mood.

The European Commission’s plans to amend the Capital Requirements Directive, proposed last year, will be on the agenda at next Tuesday’s meeting of banking representatives at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

UBS is considering selling lightly structured notes with yield-enhancing features to retail investors looking to take advantage of high volatility in the Hong Kong stock market.

Morgan Stanley has launched a transition management services group in Asia and is looking to push over-the-counter derivatives to its Asia ex-Japan institutional investor clients.

Eurex is looking for any stakeholders buying into its platform for clearing credit default swaps to have a minimum market cap of EUR5 billion.

Joe Compton, a director in equity derivative sales to hedge funds at Deutsche Bank in New York, exited the bank yesterday.

A report on the future of European financial supervision, ordered by the European Commission, is expected to support tighter regulation of the credit derivatives markets, but unlikely to offer explicit recommendations as to how that should be done.

Galena Asset Management, a subsidiary of commodities house Trafigura Group, has hired Claude Lixi from Morgan Stanley to run its planned oil derivatives fund.