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UBS has beefed up its Iberian marketing force, signing up former Morgan Stanley credit derivatives flow salesman Manuel Muniz Morell and Luis Almeida, a salesman at Goldman Sachs in London.

Many trades are executed in the U.S. markets on behalf of non-U.S. clients who wish to hedge or monetize positions in the American Depositary Receipts or common stock of non-U.S. issuers that trade substantially in the U.S.

Buying and selling options on variance has started in earnest, as the volatility environment is less certain and the instruments are becoming more widely traded.

Investment manager Alcentra, a subsidiary of the Bank of New York which runs more than USD7 billion in assets, is hedging fx risk on a high-yield collateralized loan obligation. The structure will feature a string of cross-currency asset swaps to hedge the currency mismatch between euro assets and any non-euro liabilities.

ABN AMRO is setting up an internal hedge fund named Merebis Capital Management.

IXIS Corporate & Investment Bank has hired Claus Hecher, a managing director in equity derivative sales at Bear Stearns in London. Based in Frankfurt, Hecher will be responsible for sales of equity derivatives and fund of fund products into Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe. He replaces Michael Neumayer, who transferred to London late last year to head global equity sales (DW, 10/7).

UBS has restocked its credit desk by hiring Seth Pierpoint, a trader covering energy names, and Mike Cannon, an auto credit trader to replace Daniel Brereton and Chris Rekow, who left the firm last year (DW, 2/20). They report to Michael Morris, managing director for cash and credit derivatives trading in Stamford, Conn. Morris was on vacation and traders referred calls to Kris Kagel, UBS spokesman, who confirmed the hires. Pierpoint and Cannon were not available for comment.

Macquarie Bank has transferred Matthew Long, head of equity derivative sales, from Singapore to Hong Kong, to assume a more regional remit and expand its presence. Long built up an equity derivatives desk in the Lion City to tap the emerging warrant market and private banking business (DW, 12/3). He said the desk is now up to eight staff and will grow by 50% this year. "Singapore has become a very important market for us," he said. In addition to Singapore and the firm's equity hub in Hong Kong, Long said in this new role he will be looking at growing the business in other markets in the region, declining to elaborate. The Aussie house will be looking to build on its cash equity platform in Asia that it acquired from ING Barings (DW, 2/8/04), he added.

Sergio Ravich, managing director and head of fixed income sales to Spain at Credit Suisse, has left the firm. Ravich, who could not be reached for comment, reported to Osama Abbasi, co-head of fixed income coverage. It could not be determined if he has taken a new position. His role has been assumed by Savady Yen, head of fixed income sales to France and Benelux. Rebecca O'Neill, spokeswoman in London, confirmed the move.

Some credit dealers are holding off entering the budding tranchelets market because of uncertainty over correlation risks. They say the instruments are extremely sensitive to even the smallest change in the correlation curve and these minuscule changes can be hard to predict. "Because of the narrow attachment points, a small move in the curve will have a big impact on the tranche," said one dealer at a top-tier credit house.

Wilson Kamit, governor of the country's central bank, assesses finacial sector reforms.

Interest-rate trading has jumped in recent weeks in Korea as newer participants including securities houses and hedge funds ramp up activity. "This will be an amazing year," said a marketing head at a bulge bracket house, tipping volumes in the pure-won swap market to more than double last year's approximate USD400 million notional. The growing liquidity has seen bid-offer spreads on won swaps move in significantly. For instance last year 10-year swaps had a bid-offer spread around five to six basis points, which has now shrunk to one to two basis points.