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Principal-protected retail equity-linked notes are back in vogue in Asia as global uncertainty triggers greater investor caution. "As the interest-rate and political situation [in the Middle East] remains unclear, clients are displaying an added degree of caution," said Patricia Lau, in equity risk management at UBS in Hong Kong. She noted investors have been shifting back to the capital guaranteed structures which dominated the retail note market two-to-three years back.

Los Angeles-based TCW Asset Management, a USD130 billion manager of 82 collateralized debt obligations, is ramping its first synthetic CDO squared to close later this month. The USD400 million deal, called Visage CDO I, will use total-return swaps to reference at least 40 tranches of cash asset-backed securities CDOs.

Leveraged super-senior collateralized debt obligations, a popular innovation in the corporate synthetic CDO market over the past year, are taking off in the commercial mortgage-backed securities market with Wachovia, Goldman Sachs and BlackRock all set to hit the market with such deals.

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The covenant-lite deals that seemed to be flooding the market just a month ago are coming at a much-slower pace, fewer and farther between.

Some investors are miffed over the new dividend deal for Triumph Healthcare, which is in the market just six months after the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) threatened to cut Medicare reimbursement by what would have equaled about 10.4%.

Highland Capital Management and CDC IXIS Capital Markets completed a $700 million collateralized loan obligation, Jasper CLO, which allowed the manager to extend the deal's 12-year tenor.

Goldman Sachs is trying to make a Dutchman change the name of his sex-themed Web site, goldmansex.com.

Investors are speculating that Wachovia Securities ate a portion of its $200 million Globalstar deal, which launched May 31 but is no longer being offered on Syndtrak and has not broken for trading.

This chart, provided by Citigroup Global Markets, tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities that trade in the secondary market.

--Nicholas C. Hindman, cfo, Westell Technologies, said about LaSalle National Bank's strong partnership with the company.