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Traders at interest-rate derivatives houses in Taipei, including Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC andCredit Lyonnais, expect an interbank swaptions market to develop in Taiwan this year on the back of the launch of an interest-rate futures contract. Currently, a few caps and floors have been executed but traders have not seen any swaptions.

Standard Chartered Bank has hired Adrian Fong, v.p of rates trading at JPMorgan in Hong Kong, as chief dealer of Hong Kong dollar interest-rate derivatives. The hire is part of the firm's plan to bulk up its fixed income derivatives capabilities, according to Dennis Wong, Northeast Asia regional head of interest-rate derivatives in Hong Kong (DW, 10/14). He added, "Adrian will reinforce our market-making capabilities for Hong Kong dollars." Previously Wong held this role but he said it has added a layer of management to build up the team. Fong, who is due to start this week, was on gardening leave and could not be reached for comment.

Hugh Evans, managing director and co-global head of credit derivatives trading at UBS Warburg in London, left the firm last week. He reported to Robert Wolf, co-global head of fixed income in Stamford, Conn. Former colleagues said Evan's departure was inevitable. One said "[his] power had been reduced over the last six months, the writing was on the wall." Another added that Wolf and Evans had a personality clash and Wolf was responsible for pushing him out. However, Wolf denies there was a personality clash between the two and said Evans was not sacked.

The London Investment Banking Association is scheduled to meet Wednesday with the Financial Services Authority to push for a reduction in proposed regulations governing a listed retail derivatives market in the U.K. One of the central planks of LIBA's position is it wants the FSA to classify derivatives for the retail market as "securities", which would thereby require a less onerous regulatory framework, according to Tim Plews, partner at Clifford Chance in London. LIBA is representing a number of equity derivatives houses which hope to see a comparable U.K. retail equity derivative market to the massive German and Swiss retail warrants markets. Among firms pushing for the creation of the market--either independently or via LIBA--are Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Commerzbank.

Yorkshire Building Society, the third-largest thrift in the U.K. with more than GBP12.5 billion (USD17.8 billion) in assets, has entered a foreign exchange swap to convert into sterling USD350 million of a USD500 million bond deal it sold last month. Chris Parrish, group treasurer in Bradford, said the building society entered a swap with Royal Bank of Scotland Financial Markets to convert the bond into its base currency. Gordon Taylor, director of origination at RBOS in London, confirmed the bank acted as Yorkshire's counterparty.

When trading slowed down early last week a dealer craving for action put a price on his own head, literally. After proposing to shave his head for $1000, traders scrambled to find willing participants to back the deal. By mid-week the price had surged. "He's got a bid of $1500," said one trader, adding, "But, he'll come down." LMW could not confirm if the transaction was ever completed.

This chart, provided by Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney Inc., tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities for the week ending March 1 that trade in the secondary market. It also tracks facility amounts, ratings, pricing and maturities.

Société Générale is structuring a EUR300 million (USD261 million) arbitrage synthetic collateralized debt obligation. An investor in London said the portfolio consists of credit-default swaps referenced to 54 European and six U.S. blue chip corporates. He added, there is no exposure to the airline or gaming industries.

The Walt Disney Co. has entered an interest-rate swap on the back of a USD1.75 billion global bond offering last month, according to Thomas Staggs, cfo in Burbank, Calif. The company finalized the global bond sale in late February and had looked to do an interest-rate swap immediately following the offering. Instead, was forced to wait a couple weeks because it could not enter at a low enough rate he said, declining to elaborate.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is structuring a USD3 billion synthetic collateralized swap obligation with a unique step-up coupon designed to assuage CDO investors who have been battered as a result of downgrades. In the deal, dubbed Petra, the second loss tranche is a single A rated credit-linked note with a coupon that jumps 50 basis points if it gets downgraded to BBB and 150bps if it goes to speculative grade, according to an investor who is familiar with the deal. The deal is likely to come to market in the next couple of months. Officials at DrKW declined comment.

Enodis, a food service equipment provider, has entered over-the-counter foreign exchange swaps to convert proceeds from a sterling-denominated bond offering it issued late last month into dollars and euros. Although the company is headquartered in London it has significant assets and exposure outside the U.K., said Susan Sharrock Yates, interim treasurer in London. "The bulk of our assets are in dollars and we generally seek to try and match the currency of our assets, but we were advised that it would be [cheaper] to issue in sterling, including swapping across," she said. She declined to quantify the cost saving of issuing in sterling and not dollars or euros.