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COMINVEST Asset Management, the asset management arm of Commerzbank with EUR53 billion (USD65 billion) under management, will likely issue capital-protected investment products on its funds of hedge funds.

CDC IXIS Capital Markets is finalizing a synthetic collateralized debt obligation that incorporates a second-to-default feature with credit and equity risk, which the firm believes is the first of its kind.

Credit protection on troubled U.K. airline British Airways tightened as traders predicted staff shortages and other problems dogging the airline are set to improve.

Standard Chartered has re-hired Wichak Sirisae, head of derivatives and securities trading in Bangkok at Citigroup in Bangkok, as treasurer in Bangkok. Sirisae, who started last week, said he has replaced Raymond Lee, treasurer, who has transferred to Kuala Lumpur for a senior banking role within the bank.

Karim Zahmoul, a former co-head of emerging market structuring for the Americas at Deutsche Bank in New York, has resurfaced at Barclays Capital as global head of emerging market structuring.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board's Emerging Issues Task Force plans to meet next month with the aim of settling the debate on how to value interest rate swaps in collateralized debt obligations and therefore whether swap counterparties have to consolidate the whole deal.

Brett Clancy, director in credit structuring at CDC IXIS Capital Markets in Tokyo, commenting on the firm's motivation for including equity-default swaps in its most recent CDO.

Stuart Sternberg, former Goldman Sachs managing director and Tampa Bay Devil Rays investor is one of a group led by Larry Falcone, American Stock Exchange lead options trader for SLK-Hull Derivatives, set to spend USD3-4 million to buy the books back from Goldman Sachs.

Fund managers scrambling to cover short U.S. dollar positions against the Thai baht last week pushed one-month implied volatility in the currency pair up to 4.6% from 3.8% the previous week.

JPMorgan has hired Brian Zeitlin, managing director and global co-head of collateralized debt obligations and the credit hybrid business at Deutsche Bank in New York, and four senior members of his team.

Merrill Lynch's credit derivatives research department has developed models designed to offer clients more transparency of assumptions underlying how exotic credit derivatives are priced.

Japan's Nomura Securities, which has a long-established credit derivatives presence, will not become a market maker in the recently launched Dow Jones iTraxx CJ index due to the inclusion of its name among the reference entities.