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Morgan Stanley has hired Rob Mason, a senior exotic equity trader at Credit Suisse First Boston in London, as executive director and head of equity exotics trading for Europe.

Fixed income marketers in Korea have noted a substantial pickup for liability management trades following recent talks of interest rate increases.

Société Générale Asset Management Alternative Investments and New York-based hedge fund shop AM Investment Partners have teamed up to launch a global volatility and convertible fund.

Standard & Poor's has responded to rapid growth in the European CDS on ABS market by including the assets in its new version of the synthetic CDO monitoring tool Accelerator.

Matt Nadel, senior v.p. and equity derivative prop trader at Swiss Re in New York, has left the firm after just over a year.

The nascent index tranche options market is being held back because few dealers are willing or able to quote prices, preventing a liquid market from taking shape.

--Eric Slighton, head of Asia-Pacific credit derivatives at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong, explaining the bank's decision to build out its Japanese structured credit business, in spite of strong competition and the tight spread environment.

UBS has closed a novel collateralized bond obligation in Taiwan, referenced to a portfolio of structured interest rate notes.

London-based BlueCrest Capital Management has hired an equity derivatives trader for a volatility arbitrage venture.

Lehman's European co-head of equity sales is set to transfer to New York.

Synthetic collateralized debt obligations are getting hotter and more creative, but investor knowledge needs to catch up with the market, said Ira Wagner, senior managing director at Bear Stearns and chairman of the Bond Market Association's CDO committee.

Two bond market veterans have founded Hilltown Capital Management and are set to launch a relative-value credit fund.