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David Moffitt, managing director in credit derivative sales at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Conn., has left the firm.

Some tricks of the conference trade were spilled.

Declining equity volatility in recent weeks has taken the sails out of the structured note market in Korea as pricing has become less attractive.

--Robert Reoch, founder of Reoch Credit, on the potential for third-tier banks to get into credit derivatives.

Third-tier banks in almost every major world economy are trading credit derivatives, and the list is growing.

Dan Hutchinson, managing director in equity derivatives flow sales at Wachovia in New York, reporting to John Van Poznak, managing director, has left the firm.

German pharmaceuticals company Bayer lit up the European convertible bond market on Wednesday by issuing the largest deal for three years, a Eu2bn issue to part-refinance its Eu16.3bn agreed acquisition of German rival Schering.

Deutsche Bank has signed up Neil Servis, director and head of European CDOs and structured credit syndicate at Citigroup in London. Servis declined comment when reached on his cell. He will report to Fritz Thomas, managing director and head of European and Asian syndicated CDOs, and Michael Raynes, managing director and co-head of global securitized products group in New York. Both were traveling and did not return messages by press time. Further details of his role could not be immediately determined.

Citigroup's head of equity structured products in New York has moved on after two months in the job.

Deutsche Bank has hired Filippo Lanza, senior credit portfolio manager and credit derivatives trader at hedge fund Ferox Capital Management in London. Reached at Deutsche Bank, Lanza declined all comment and details of his role could not immediately be determined. Credit officials say he reports to co-heads of global structured credit trading Bertrand Des Pallieres and Antonio Di Flumeri, who is also European head of credit derivatives. The pair did not return calls by press time.

Merrill Lynch has bulked up derivative sales in Hong Kong with a wave of hires. Gary Hung, marketer at UBS, joins as a director in the strategic solutions group, and Edouard Hoepffner, v.p. and Wendy Cheung, associate, both marketers at Deutsche Bank, join as a director and associate, respectively, in the same group, according to firm officials. The trio report to Abhinav Gorawara, managing director in the strategic solutions group in Hong Kong. Gorawara did not return messages by press time.

Declining equity volatility in recent weeks has taken the sails out of the structured note market in Korea as pricing has become less attractive. "Single-stock vol has declined sharply," said an official at ABN AMRO. For example, realized volatility on Shinhan Financial Group has fallen from around 40% last year to 25%. It has become difficult to price equity-linked notes--a massive local business in the last few years--at attractive levels. "The margin for a deal we were holding and preparing to issue was wiped out within three days," said a senior equity derivatives marketer at a bulge bracket house.