Free content

Grumbling about the absence of a breakfast spread at the small event, one delegate offered to buy bagels and a box of cereal from the deli across the street for a handful of other hungry attendees.

Primus Guaranty UK has signed up Graeme Wood, a credit derivatives broker at BGC Partners, and Bryan Barboni, a trader at Calyon in London, as part of an expansion of its London credit derivatives business.

WestLB is transferring Robert Brennan, head of derivatives for Asia in Tokyo, to London. He has been named treasurer for the U.K., Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Standard Bank's Malcolm Wilde, ceo for Asia in Hong Kong, has resigned from the firm, according to an internal memo obtained by DW.

Merrill Lynch in London has hired Adrian Valenzuela, partner at hedge fund firm WMG, as a managing director. He reportedly joins as head of equity derivative flow sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Brent Clapacs, head of equity sales for EMEA, did not immediately respond to a message and a call to Valenzuela was referred to the press office, where Alex Walker, spokeswoman, was not able to comment on his title or reporting line by press time.

Joseph Yam, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority,

Jeff Abt, a managing director at Lehman Brothers, has left to join Goldman Sachs.

Standard Bank's Malcolm Wilde, ceo for Asia in Hong Kong, has resigned from the firm, according to an internal memo obtained by DW. Reasons for the departure could not immediately be determined. "He has been instrumental in our growth in the region and recently played a key role in securing the people we hired from Bank of China International and HVB," noted Rob Leith, ceo in London. The South African bank has this year made a major push into Asia across asset classes, reeling in an equity derivatives team from BOCI (DW, 4/30) and a securitization group from HVB Asia (DW, 5/12), among other hires in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Wilde, who had worked at the firm for 14 years in London, Singapore and Hong Kong, could not be reached.

Morgan Stanley in London has hired five equity derivative salesmen to establish itself in the hot German market. Bernhard Wenger, previously at BNP Paribas, comes on board as an executive director, covering structured equity sales. Four others join for flow sales from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein: Matthias Rode and Uwe Warpak as executive directors and Christian Stock and Christian Schalke come on board as v.p.s.

Steve Kuppenheimer, director in global structured credit products and co-head of collateralized debt obligations at Merrill Lynch in New York, has left the firm. He reported to Harin de Silva and Ken Margolis, managing directors and co-heads of CDOs at Merrill, who were out of the office and did not immediately respond to emails. Reached on his cell, Kuppenheimer declined comment.

Merrill Lynch has hired Lorenzo Centi-Colella from Goldman Sachs as a director and inflation swaps trader in London. He replaces Christian Alibert, who returned last week to The Royal Bank of Scotland after two years at Merrill. Centi-Colella works with Jacob Oppon, inflation swaps trader who joined with Alibert from RBS. Oppon declined all comment.

Derivative houses in India are awaiting accounting rules which should open the door for further market development. "While volumes continue to expand, product development has been on hold," said Srinivasan Varadarajan, treasurer at JPMorgan in Mumbai, explaining end-users are mostly piling into plain-vanilla interest-rate products and rupee fx options.