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The Bank of Korea has eased guidelines surrounding collateralized debt obligation deals sold locally and this is expected to speed up transactions.

Merrill Lynch reportedly has hired Hamish Cameron, a director at UBS, and Michael Ondruska, an associate at Morgan Stanley, to add to its derivatives solutions group in New York.

RBC Capital Markets has hit the road with a USD1.5 billion high-grade collateralized debt obligation, which allows it to substitute deteriorating credits.

Morgan Stanley has lost a clutch of structured credit officials in Asia and Europe.

Gregory Zerzan, who joined the trade association last week in the new role of counsel and head of global public policy, threw a thought into the leftfield which triggered some lively break-time conversation.

The year-end 2005 Market Survey, noted notional principal outstanding volume of CDS grew 39% to USD17.3 trillion. Interest-rate derivatives grew almost 16% to USD213.2 trillion year-on-year while equity derivatives outstanding grew 34% to USD5.6 trillion.

The US's red-hot hybrid capital securities market was knocked sideways this week when the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which regulates how insurance companies invest, suddenly and inexplicably decided to redesignate one of the most debt-like structures as common equity.

Tony Venutolo, executive director in structured credit marketing at Morgan Stanley in London, has resigned from the firm. Reached on his cell, Venutolo confirmed he has taken a role at a rival firm, but declined to name his new employer. Market officials have connected him with a position in European structuring at Société Générale. Michelle Gather-Cole, spokeswoman for the French firm, declined comment. At Morgan Stanley, Venutolo reported to Jerome Anglade, managing director and head of structured credit marketing, who could not be reached.

Nikko Citigroup has recruited market veteran Tony Kay, head of credit derivatives trading at Bank of America in Tokyo, for a senior trading role according to market officials. Yoshito Matsuura, head of credit derivatives at Nikko in Tokyo, declined all comment. Kay was the talk of the credit market when he joined BofA from UBS, where he was the head of non-Japan Asia credit trading, for a compensation package in 2002 that set the bar for the region (DW, 8/19/02). A fluent Japanese speaker, Kay could not be reached by press time. Sal Amery, head of credit derivatives at Bank of America in Hong Kong, to whom Kay reported to, declined comment.

AIG Financial Products is setting up a cross-product derivatives desk in a planned office in Hong Kong and is bringing aboard Aditya Rana, executive director at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, to establish a CDO structuring effort for Asia. A senior official at Banque AIG confirmed the start of an operation across asset classes, but declined to further elaborate on the details. "We see a lot of potentials in Greater China," said the official. The firm has a long-running Japanese business, for which it launched a structured private placement desk in Tokyo by hiring a team from JPMorgan last year (DW, 4/8).

JPMorgan has signed up derivatives broker Kieran O'Connor to source illiquid assets for it financial institution derivatives marketing group in London. Reached at JPMorgan, O'Connor declined all comment, but credit officials familiar with the hire said he reports to Ian Wilson, co-head of northern Europe derivatives marketing, and focuses on the U.K. and Holland. Wilson was off the desk and could not be reached by press time. Before JPMorgan, O'Connor ran his own multi asset-class brokering business called Cortin Capital. He is the second recent addition to the desk following Raymond de Kuiper, who landed this month from Morgan Stanley (DW, 3/10). Sarah Oppler, spokeswoman in

Deutsche Bank has poached two derivative marketers from Citigroup to meet increased demand for business in the Nordic region. Harald Lofgren joins as director and Knut Kobberstad as v.p. in the Nordic debt capital markets and corporate coverage group in London.