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--Sanjeev Handa, portfolio manager at TIAA-CREF, on what investors can do to mitigate servicer risk.

Gartmore Investment Management may buy up to £105 million ($190 million) in European high-yield bonds, doubling the junk bond exposure of its corporate bond portfolio in a bid to take on more yield.

Merrill Lynch is planning to become the next firm to securitize a portfolio of auto loans it has acquired from outside originators, according to asset-backed market participants.

--Dan Hennessey, partner and founder of Code Hennessy & Simmons, explaining the company's decision to seek Gundle/SLT Environmental.

This chart, provided by Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney Inc., tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities that trade in the secondary market. It also tracks facility amounts, ratings, pricing and maturities.

This week's explosive start to dollar bond business in 2004 could not disguise the fact that the market bore a sharply different colour on either side of the Atlantic - and the Pacific.

Robert Teatom, former head of U.S. fixed income at J.P. Morgan Fleming Asset Management, has retired from the firm after nearly three decades.

AXA Investment Managers is looking into issuing collateralized debt obligations for the retail market, though the project is still in the research phase.

Bespoke Financial Consulting, a London-based structured product design group, has launched a fund based on an equity derivative swap.

Derivatives lawyers and professionals are starting to marshal their defense against a recent National Association of Insurance Commissioners' white paper which recommends that insurance companies should be the sole provider of weather derivatives.

Major derivatives dealers, including Citigroup Global Markets, Deutsche Bank and SG Corporate and Investment Banking, started to structure more capital guaranteed equity instruments last year and this trend is expected to pick up in the following 12 months.