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JPMorgan has reorganized the flow products desk within its risk transformation group and given it a global focus. Stephen Stonberg, managing director and head of European credit derivatives marketing in London, and Andrew Palmer, managing director and head of U.S. credit derivatives marketing in New York, will each continue to run the risk transformation groups regionally, but Stonberg will be responsible for funded flow products globally and Palmer will be responsible for unfunded flow products globally, Stonberg said.

Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro are shopping a $125 million "B" term loan for GenCorp subsidiary Aerojet-General, backing its $90 million acquisition of General Dynamics' ordnance and tactical systems, space propulsion and fire suppression business. The 5.5-year loan, which is priced at LIBOR plus 3%, also will be used to pay $5 million in transaction costs and pay down $30 million in borrowings under the existing $150 million revolver. Deutsche Bank officials declined to comment, and calls to ABN were not returned.

An $60 million auction of Warnaco went off in the 27-28 context this week. The paper had been moving in the low 30s, and the size of the piece was said to have pushed the price down. The company is currently working its way through a bankruptcy restructuring process and will most likely emerge as a stand-alone company at the end of this year (LMW, 6/3). Calls to Jim Fogarty, cfo, were not returned.

The ongoing debate over the definition of restructuring as a credit event has edged closer to all-out confrontation with last week's circulation of a draft supplement by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the increasing probability that an argument over Xerox's restructuring will end up in court. The ISDA draft has raised the hackles of a group of major insurers, which believe the association has weaseled out of providing a workable definition of restructuring, industry officials told sister publication Derivatives Week. Officials at the ISDA did not return calls.

Collateralized debt obligation investors are asking dealers to structure synthetic CDOs in which managers can use credit-default swaps to hedge positions or lock in profits, which can then be used to add credit support to the transaction, typically called a short bucket. James Hart, portfolio manager at ZAIS Group Investment Advisors in Dublin, with over USD3.5 billion under management, said he would be more likely to buy a CDO tranche with this facility because it protects the portfolio against credit deterioration.

The ongoing debate over the definition of restructuring as a credit event has edged closer to all-out confrontation with the circulation last week of a draft supplement by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the increasing probability that an argument over Xerox's restructuring will end up in court. The ISDA draft has raised the hackles of a group of major insurers who believe the association has crawfished out of providing a workable definition of restructuring, according to industry officials. Stacey Carey, policy director at ISDA, said the committees continue to debate all the issues surrounding restructuring.

Credit Suisse First Boston has hired Rex Ma, structurer in the fixed income group at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, as a director in its emerging markets structuring group in Hong Kong. Carl Bautista, managing director of the emerging markets structuring group, said Ma is a replacement for Boon Yong Leo who left several months ago. Leo could not be reached for comment and his whereabouts could not be determined by press time.

Deutsche Bank plans to launch its first structured product based on the iBoxx index within the next two weeks. iBoxx is a European fixed-income index jointly compiled by seven market makers to provide transparent pricing of investment-grade corporate bonds. The five-year note will synthetically replicate the weightings of the entire corporate portion of the iBoxx index, which includes around 450 names, according to an official at Deutsche Bank.

Credit-default protection on Ford Motor Credit widened as much as 10% last week before paring its losses, after the U.S. auto maker said August sales rose more slowly than those of its two main competitors. Midmarket five-year default swaps on the financing entity of Ford widened 40 basis points Wednesday after the parent reported that morning that its U.S. sales rose just 12% during August. Compared to a 24% rise for DaimlerChrysler's U.S. operations and an 18% gain for General Motors, traders said the numbers didn't bode well for Ford.