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A derivative that allows outside investors to take views on the value of employee stock options is drawing interest from equity derivatives and corporation financing officials following recent approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

GSC Group, the Florham Park, N.J.-hedge fund with USD18 billion of assets under management, is set to close its first long-only CDO equity fund.

HSBC is bringing a mezzanine collateralized debt obligation to the market. Grand

Credit traders were focused on index arbitrage last week as the CDX family of indices gave up all of the gains made this year during the market-wide sell-off Tuesday.

Hartford Life Insurance is selling equity index-linked notes and planning to offer a variety of other structured investments.

International asset manager INVESCO is planning a second close next week of its first long/short synthetic collateralized debt obligation.

Lehman Brothers has merged its credit derivatives and corporate bond strategy teams and named Ashish Shah as global head of the combined group.

JPMorgan is reorganizing equity derivative alpha strategy under new hire Adrian Valenzuela, who previously headed flow sales at Merrill Lynch.

Insurers and structurers are looking at a variety of synthetic securitizations of insurance risks which would follow on from last week's first collateralized debt obligation backed by re-insurance recoverables.

Morgan Stanley has merged its fixed-income and equity derivatives marketing groups in Europe, taking a path already trod by rivals such as JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch some time ago.

Nomura has expanded its equity derivatives sales staff in Hong Kong on the back of index strength and strong demand for its equity-linked structures.