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Toyota Motor Credit has started offering derivative-based investment notes to U.S. investors and last month tapped Citigroup's retail network to sell its first commodity-linked note.

Deutsche Bank

Bank of America

--Steve Howard, director of capital markets at Toyota Motor Credit in Torrance, Calif., discussing the firm's structure note issuance program.

Zais Group, a collateralized debt obligation manager based in Redbank, N.J., is managing a first-of-a-kind CDO squared, using a cash-flow structure and synthetic assets.

Automobile product manufacturer AKSys will be launching a Eu150m refinancing via Dresdner Kleinwort later this month. The bank won the mandate for the five year deal from private equity sponsors led by Deutsche Beteiligungs. The group also comprises Axa Private Equity, PPM and Süd Private Equity.

Barclays Capital has hired a trio of equity derivative sales officials to expand its Middle East coverage.

Churchill Financial, the middle-market finance company led by Ken Kencel, ceo, is set to acquire Centre Pacific, a collateralized debt obligation manager that has $3.5 billion in assets under management.

Credit Suisse Private Bank's North Asia head of products has joined Bank Julius Baer in a new role as head of products for Asia-Pacific.

For the third year in a row, hedge fund managers have no competition when it comes to total compensation, taking home, on average, $1.05 million per year, according to Greenwich Associates' annual study of U.S. fixed-income participants.

-- John LeFrere, director at B+H Ocean Carriers, about the company's decision to go with all European banks.

The multi-billion dollar leveraged buyouts that will be hitting the markets the next few months may get some help from the new ratings methodology rolled out by Moody's Investors Service.