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Merrill Lynch has hired John Uglum, managing director in interest rate exotic derivatives trading, from Morgan Stanley. Uglum started last week and reports to Nick Brophy, managing director and head of interest rate derivatives trading in the U.S. At Morgan Stanley, he was executive director in exotic interest rate derivatives trading, reporting to David Moore, head of interest rate derivatives trading in New York. He has been replaced by Raj Suryadevara, v.p. from Merrill Lynch, who started today. Uglum and Moore, who was traveling, could not be reached and Brophy declined all comment. Separately, Morgan Stanley has named replacements for Sean Notley, head of European fixed income and global co-head of interest rates and currency in London, who took a leave of absence last month after 20 years at the firm. Colin Bryce, European head of commodities in London, will continue in his current role and replace Notley as head of fixed income in Europe. Roberto Hoornweg, global head of emerging markets in London, retains this role and has also been named co-head of interest rates and currency. Hoornweg joins Phil Newcomb, co-head of interest rates and currency and head of fixed income in New York. Mark Lake, Morgan Stanley spokesman, said Notley will return to the bank in a new role, which has not yet been decided.

Britannia Building Society has synthetically hedged exposure to GBP130 million (USD243 million) of asset-backed securitizations in what market watchers say is a first-of-a-kind transaction in that it covers potential drawdown of reserve funds. In the deal, the U.K. thrift has bought credit-default swap protection on the reserve funds associated with the first-loss piece of seven cash RMBS securitizations it originated between 2003 and this year. The swap is triggered if the underlying notes do not meet note-holder payments.

Bear Stearns has recently started marketing in Asia a capital guaranteed structure linked to the performance of a basket of water-related companies. "The [United Nations] has issued a report highlighting the severity of water shortages. The demand for clean fresh water will double in the coming 20 years," said Edward Ho, senior managing director in Hong Kong. "This is something investors are taking notice of."

Oil boom means government could bail out banks after lending binge

A Nomura co-head of international equity derivatives has left the firm.

JPMorgan has hired Citigroup's Matt Cherwin to head its asset-backed securities trading group, which will include synthetics and secondary CDOs. Cherwin is on gardening leave and could not be reached. Brian Marchiony, JPMorgan spokesman, said he will report to Bill King and Christine Cole, co-heads of JPMorgan's securitized products business, who were unavailable for comment. Joseph Christinat, Citi spokesman, did not return a phone call.

Entegra Power Group's term loan jumped six points to 117 on Apollo Management's interest in the energy company and its debt.

JPMorgan pulled its deal for DaVita last Thursday after investor resistance caused the bank to rework terms at least twice.

Want Shake Shack? Don't want to wait on line for an hour? No problem if you are a Credit Suisse banker.

JPMorgan and Lehman Brothers are set to hold a bank meeting at the Waldorf Astoria Monday for the financing to back Texas Pacific Group's approximately $1.04 billion leveraged buyout of the consumer packaging division of Smurfit-Stone Containers Corp. Bluegrass Container Co., as the deal is being called, is the company formed by TPG to acquire the division.

Holders of Safety-Kleen debt are starting to close on trades--some as old as two-and-a-half years--in order to receive rights to buy shares of stock in Safety-Kleen as part of its planned rights offering.

The following charts show the top five advancers and decliners in terms of % moves in the loan, bond and credit default swap markets for the previous week.