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JPMorgan's John Moore, v.p. in equity derivative sales in Hong Kong, has left the industry to return to his native Australia.

Conference speakers and delegates hope that greater transparency will be at the top of the Securities and Exchange Commission's list of topics to be addressed during a project it is working on to develop regulations covering asset-backed securities.

Around 2,700 delegates flocked to the desert for Information Management Network's ABS West conference last week at the J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge & Spa in Phoenix. Senior reporter, Karen Brettell, attended.

Seth Vance, European head of collateralized debt obligations at Deutsche Bank in London, will leave the firm in March.

Ralph Orciuoli who quit last month as the Asian head of credit trading at Bear Stearns in Tokyo, plans to take some time out of the industry before looking for a role covering exotic derivatives.

Bear Stearns plans to issue its first Samurai bond in the coming weeks and will likely convert the proceeds into dollars via the fx swaps market.

Charles Fletcher, head of European interest-rate swaps at Bank of America in London, is transferring to Chicago to head up a new team.

Deutsche Bank has hired Dario Schiraldi, in the structured solutions group at Lehman Brothers in London, to be co-head of the institutional client group for Southern Europe.

The top Asian derivatives positions at CALYON, the entity created out of the Crédit Lyonnais and Crédit Agricole Indosuez merger, have been dished out with a Lyonnais pro taking interest rates and an Agricole alumnus getting the top equity role.

Credit-default swap spreads on Finmeccanica, an Italian defense and aerospace company, widened 20 basis points to 98bps on Monday, up from 78bps the week before.

CDO houses, including JPMorgan, expect a flurry of activity in CDOs linked to out of the money barrier options--known as equity default swaps--this year.

HSBC is preparing a major push into the equity derivatives market and will add up to 15 professionals in Paris and sales professionals in London to staff the efforts.