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State Bank and Trust of Fargo is planning to invest up to $40 million of its fixed income assets in emerging markets. Greg Sweeney, portfolio manager, says he is planning to initiate a 10% allocation to emerging markets to diversify because he thinks the fixed-income market in the U.S. has run its course.

BNP Paribas is looking to add two or three traders and a few salesmen to its high-yield trading and sales teams, according to a market source.

The primary market was saturated with dividend deals last week, as companies came to market to raise cash to pay off equity holders.

This chart, provided by Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney Inc., tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities that trade in the secondary market.

Dan Stachel, a principal and head of fixed-income research at State Street Global Advisors, continued his crusade against some of the securitization market's inherent flaws by taking on participants including issuers, rating agencies and even fellow investors at the American Securitization Forum's debt conference last week in Scottsdale, Ariz. Stachel, who has become the most-outspoken critic of many of the established market practices, said the rating agencies cannot be objective because they are paid by issuers.

--George Varughese, a managing director with Alvarez & Marsal, explaining how Credit Suisse First Boston fulfilled HealthSouth Corp.'s financing needs.

Sanofi-Synthélabo, the French pharmaceuticals company, lit up the bond, equity and loan markets this week by launching a Eu47.8bn hostile bid for its competitor, Aventis.

Artie DeGaetano, head of the high yield trading team and a partner at Bear Stearns, resigned a couple of weeks ago due to family health issues.

HSBC has hired Michael Zim, former senior foreign exchange options trader at AIG Trading in Greenwich, Conn., for a similar role in New York.

Nat Litwak, v.p. in foreign exchange sales at AIG Trading Group in Greenwich, Conn., has quit the firm to launch a global macro hedge fund.

Ralph Orciuoli, managing director and Asian head of credit trading at Bear Stearns in Tokyo, has left the firm.

ABN AMRO began the New Year by splitting its equity derivatives proprietary and flow derivatives business to form two separate desks.