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ICAP has shut its weather and environmental derivatives desk after the two markets failed to take off. ICAP's desk had three staffers, head of the desk, Clive Murray, weather broker Katleen de Cock and environmental products broker James Emanuel. One official said the weather derivatives industry has almost vanished, with only a couple of trades being executed a week.

Tokyo-based members of theInternational Swaps and Derivatives Association have started initial discussions about establishing a non-Japan Asia credit committee. "Some members are showing a lot of interest for such a forum," said Tomoko Morita, assistant director of policy at ISDA in Tokyo. The issue was brought up on Monday and warrants further discussion, she noted. Dealers said the foreign firms, notably JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch, displayed interest in setting up a committee. Officials at the firms declined comment. Morita continued that ISDA will circulate a memo in the next week about how to proceed with establishing such a committee. "We'll first involve the dealers and then later speak with end-users," she added.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has abandoned its planned supplement on which forms of guarantee can be used under standard credit language. The move means the U.S. and European markets will trade using different contracts, the Japanese market will likely adopt the same wording as the Europeans, according to an e-mail obtained by DW.

JPMorgan has hired Kelvin Wong, head of structured credit sales at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, in a new role as head of credit sales in Hong Kong. "The pie is going to grow significantly in Asia and we want to increase the size of our slice," said Guido Haller, head of investor sales at JPMorgan in Hong Kong, to whom Wong now reports. Haller said that in addition to developing the firm's bond distribution network, Wong will also look to build its structured credit product business in non-Japan Asia. Wong, who starts in the coming weeks, could not be reached.

Mariner Investment Group has hired Hoggie Kim, v.p. at structured products boutique BroadStreet Group in New York, as v.p. on its newly forged structured credit desk and will cement further hires, including a senior correlation and synthetics trader, in the coming weeks. Arif Inayat, partner at Mariner in New York, said the hires are part of the firm's plan to build a structured credit and credit derivatives trading desk.

JPMorgan is talking with regulators about offering credit derivatives in local currencies in Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan within the coming months. "We're in the process of investigating what we need to do to offer the products," said Chris Nicholas, managing director and head of Asian credit markets in Hong Kong.

Headhunter Napier Scott Executive Search has published a survey of U.K. derivatives sales staffers' total remuneration. The survey shows that managing directors in equity derivatives sales got bonuses of around half that of their credit derivatives counterparts. Sales professionals that work across assets classes received the largest paychecks.

Idaho Power, a Boise, Idaho-based utility, is considering entering its first Treasury lock, in order to guarantee low interest rates in anticipation of a potential refinancing of a bond. Dennis Gribble, assistant treasurer, noted that with an apparent upturn in the U.S. economy possible interest-rate hikes are on the horizon. The risk of any rate rise could be offset by entering a Treasury lock, he said. Idaho is considering refinancing an outstanding USD50 million bond, which is callable next December and any Treasury lock would be executed in anticipation of this sale, he said.

The recently launched Truk Opportunity Fund, a hedge fund specializing in private investments in public equity (PIPE), is likely to enter over-the-counter derivatives including options. Michael Fein, partner in New York, said the fund directly invests in small and mid-cap public companies through shares and convertible securities, which convert into common stock. Options and warrants will be bought and sold as a means of hedging these investments, he said.

Credit-default swap spreads on DaimlerChrysler widened about 10 basis points last week as traded volumes in the name doubled. One trader said talk of a EUR300 million (USD349 million) bond issue could have been responsible for pushing spreads out to 112bps for mid-market protection Thursday from around 100bps the previous week. There was a general blow out in auto names, which could have been caused by investors buying protection as spreads have been historically tight over recent weeks. Trading volumes rose to USD20 million per day from a typical USD10 million, noted a trader.

ISDA has set June 20 as the start date for implementation of the 2003 credit derivatives definitions. This is also the quarterly roll date for standard credit-default swaps. The definitions, originally called the 2002 credit derivatives definitions, were scheduled to start being used in March, that was then moved to May and now it is the end of June. Traders and lawyers expect the market to meet the June 20 date.

The International Commercial Bank of China, with assets totaling over TWD906 billion (USD26 billion), plans to invest in credit derivative products including synthetic collateralized debt obligations for the first time before year end. "There's a lot of ideas going around," said Angela Chen, manager of the treasury department in Taipei, adding that she has been shown several credit derivative instruments by the sell side.