Derivs - People and Markets

JPMorgan is transferring a London-based sales staff to Hong Kong.

Merrill Lynch has hired five staffers to expand its Hong Kong equity derivatives operation.

UniCredit has beefed up its fund derivatives team with the addition of Amit Sharma, managing director, and Jean-Marc Spitalier, director, who were both previously with Lehman Brothers.

Speaking at yesterday's Euromoney Seminars' China Derivatives Summit, the Chinese banking regulator discussed expected growth of yuan derivatives and the need to improve liquidity in these instruments.

Markit has said it is unlikely to publish CMBX volumes, in spite of the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association's concern trading on the index is injecting volatility into the market.

Assenagon Group, an independent European asset manager, has hired two derivatives staffers to new positions at the firm.

The Trust Association of Republic of China has drafted a Master Agreement for Structured Securities, which would put the burden of product disclosure and investor suitability on the providers rather than the distributors of structured investments, and sent it to Taiwan's regulator, The Financial Supervisory Committee.

Former RBS Greenwich Capital Markets collateralized debt obligation co-head Rick Caplan has entered a start-up endeavor named Caprok Capital.

Morgan Stanley has hired a pair of equity derivatives traders from UBS in London.

Heikki Monkkonen, European head of credit structuring at Barclays Capital in London, and Andrew Whittle, head of European credit trading, have left the firm.

BNP Paribas has a former Citi staffer to head equity derivative flow sales to emerging market clients in London.

Unless the CMBX derivative index starts to offer information about daily trading volumes, portfolio managers believe more insurance companies will move away from commercial mortgage-backed securities.