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Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co., one of Japan's largest insurers with over JPY6.596 trillion (USD62.5 billion) in assets, is looking to boost its portfolio of single-name credit-linked notes in the coming months.

Merrill Lynch has merged its debt and equity structured marketing teams under the leadership of Joachim Willnow, head of equity structured products, and Stefan Guetter, head of debt structured products in London, according to an internal memo obtained by DW.

Merrill Lynch has lost two heads of equity derivatives desks in the last few weeks.

Government-owned Korea Development Bank is gearing up to launch a credit derivatives desk and structure an in-house synthetic collateralized debt obligation by year-end.

Lehman Brothers', Andrew Harmstone has been named Institutional Investor's European equity derivatives analyst of the year.

Lehman Brothers has promoted Andrew Morton, co-head of global interest rate products, and Tarun Jotwani, head of international credit markets with responsibility for credit and CDOs, to co-heads of fixed income.

TD Securities has lured Philippe Hatstadt, head of structured credit derivatives trading at Merrill Lynch in New York, as global head of credit structuring in London.

Raphael Geys, European head of fixed income sales in London, has left UBS.

U.S.-based hedge fund manager Liberty Street Fund Management will consider buying and selling over-the-counter equity options as its recently launched hedge fund's assets grow.

Taipei-based Industrial Bank of Taiwan, with assets totaling over TWD52 billion (USD1.56 billion), is looking to close its first investment in a synthetic collateralized debt obligation within six months.

Scotia Capital has hired Paul Stamoulis, a corporate derivatives marketer at TD Securities in New York, as a director responsible for marketing interest-rate, credit and equity derivatives to U.S. corporates.

--Angela Papesch, of the Asia-Pacific office at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association in Singapore, commenting on the significance of new regulations in China (see story, page 1).