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Brascan Corp., a Toronto-based holding firm with interests in commercial properties, financial services and power plants, has executed an interest rate swap to convert a recent USD200 million fixed-rate bond into a synthetic floating-rate liability. Brian Lawson, cfo, said the firm enters swaps in order to keep a balanced book. It does, however, keep a modest amount of floating rate exposure in order to take advantage of the shape of the curve, he explained.

The price of one-month euro/dollar options spiked to 10.4% Wednesday, 0.6% higher than two days previously and up from 9.6% where it sat the previous week. The hike came on the back of a dramatic appreciation in the euro, which saw the dollar dive to USD1.10 against the single European currency, down from USD1.08 the week before. The sudden move caught the market slightly off guard as euro/dollar was trading in a tight range during February, the trader noted.

Investment banks, including Deutsche Bank, ABN AMRO and Barclays Capital, have begun to receive requests from European corporates to restructure interest rate and foreign exchange swaps to ensure they can be treated as hedges under International Accounting Standard 39. European corporates have to start preparing for the accounting standard now as they must file IAS accounts from next year, according to bankers.

Goldman Sachs has reportedly entered exclusive talks to purchase El Paso Corp.'s electricity trading book, which includes derivative and cash positions, according to DW sister publication Power Finance & Risk. The investment bank is conducting due diligence on the portfolio as part of the exclusive agreement, said an official familiar with the sale process. El Paso wants to sell its electricity trading business as a package with its power generation assets and has recorded the combined book value at approximately USD1.6 billion. Mel Scott, an El Paso spokesman in Houston, declined comment. Officials at Salomon Smith Barney, which is advising El Paso, did not return calls. A Goldman spokeswoman declined comment.

Sanjeev Gupta, global head of credit derivatives at Credit Suisse First Boston in London, resigned from the firm last week. Calls to Gupta were referred to Rebecca O'Neill, a spokeswoman, who confirmed the move and declined further comment. Several officials familiar with the move said Gupta is retiring from the industry.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has pushed back the start date for adopting the 2003 credit derivatives definitions to May 6 because firms have not updated their systems. Stefano Toffolo, European chair of ISDA's operations committee and managing director and global head of OTC derivatives operations at CSFB in London, said, "The timeframe was too ambitious." A majority of derivatives houses have not updated their systems for trading credit derivatives and there are now too many trades to process them manually so players delayed the implementation rather than face a meltdown.

Korea Exchange Bank, with over KRW53.6 trillion (USD44.9 billion) in assets, plans to establish an equity derivatives operation later this year. Hee Dong Kim, head of the financial engineering department in Seoul, said the bank wants to offer products such as long-dated over-the-counter equity options and equity-linked notes.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club, one of the world's largest horse racing organizations with gambling turnover of around USD10 billion, is looking at purchasing credit-linked notes for the first time for its HKD20 billion (USD2.56 billion) investment portfolio. "At the moment we're studying the idea of buying CLNs," said Roger Tang, treasury manager. "We're still at a preliminary stage," he added. It has started looking at CLNs because they have matured into

This article focuses on the relationship between spot and risk reversals. Using five reference currency pairs chosen for the liquidity of their out-of-the-money options we investigate potential causal links between spot and risk reversals. While a causal link from risk reversals to spot cannot be entirely ruled out in some instances, the relationship appears to be very weak, whereas there is strong evidence supporting a causal link from spot to risk reversals. Consequently, charts showing spot versus risk reversals should be interpreted with caution, bearing in mind that spot is the leading force.

Société Générale plans to launch covered warrants on commodities, currencies and interest rates in the U.K.'s nascent warrants market. The firm already has issued 123 covered warrants that have equities and equity indices as reference entities listed on the London Stock Exchange, but plans to expand these offerings before the end of the second quarter, according to David Lake, head of U.K. warrants in London.

Credit-default swaps on Rolls-Royce tightened briefly last week after it released its annual results, before widening as investors recognized the company's GBP1.1 pension shortfall could be a long-term problem and could lead to a ratings downgrade. On Tuesday spreads tightened to 265 basis points/280bps from 295bps/305bps, after the results, but almost immediately widened back out to 300bps/315bps. Traders said this initial tightening happened because the net debt position of the company had not grown as much as anticipated. One trader said after the results were released, volumes quadrupled. He saw about a dozen trades in one day.