Derivs - People and Markets

Credit default swaps on GMAC Financial Services closed at 54 points upfront today, up from 53 around midday and 50 earlier on in the week.

Babson Capital Management has been verbally awarded a mandate for a structured credit managed account that could close in a week or two. The mandate gives the asset manager leeway to invest in structured credit in the secondary market, across the capital structure.

TCW Group is marketing more than one new private placement fund, focusing on mortgage-related securitization opportunities trading at distressed prices.

After talks with Tullett Prebon broke down in September, inter-dealer broker GFI Group is still feeling acquisitive, said company executives at a press briefing at the New York Athletic Club yesterday.

The price for cash settling loan-only credit default swaps referencing Canadian door maker Masonite International Corp. has landed at 52.5%, meaning protection sellers will pay out 47.5 cents on the dollar.

Rita Csejtey, formerly a v.p. in global structured products at Radian, has been hired by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a supervising examiner, credit risk advisor.

Florian De Sigy, European head of equity derivatives and fund sales at Deutsche Bank, is expected to have his position eliminated. The move comes after last week’s departure of Kim Gayer, global head of a recently created umbrella group covering structured products.

Lloyds TSB has structured a GBP256 million (USD376.4 million) synthetic collateralized debt obligation referencing assets mainly across Western Europe and North America.

Chris Hodgeman, head of structured credit and alternatives business for Asia Pacific at the Royal Bank of Scotland, left the firm last Thursday.

Ex-pat employment benefits are gradually being phased out by banks in the Asia Pacific region, with a number reducing or cutting housing allowances, club memberships and money to pay children’s school fees.

Commercial property owners and investors are increasingly using total return swaps on the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries index, or NCREIF, to hedge against expected depreciation in the asset class.

Stefan Muelheim, managing director and head of Citigroup’s equity and fixed income derivatives and cash sales to Germany, looks likely to be leaving the bank.