Search results for

A former senior manager at Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein plans to launch a hedge fund. George Handjinicolaou was a managing director and global head of emerging market debt at Merrill and head of global markets for North America at DrKW in New York.

Jeevan William, principal and Asia head of global derivatives products at Bank of America in Hong Kong, recently started a three-month leave of absence. Juan Pablo Bertotto, v.p. in global derivatives products in Hong Kong, said he has assumed responsibilities for the Hong Kong desk while marketers elsewhere in the region will now report directly to London.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein has hired two Gen Re Securities pros to set up a collateralized debt obligation presence in the U.S. Kevin Stocklin and Robert Wolf, structurers at Gen Re, have joined as a director and vice president respectively, according to Jeremy Vice, co-head of CDOs in London.

Ford Credit Canada has converted its recent DKK400 million (USD48.5 million) bond offering into Canadian dollars. Terry Huch, manager for fixed-income investor relations in Dearborn, Mich., would not comment specifically on why the company entered into the swap, but said all of its decisions are driven by the cost of funding and ongoing access to investors in diverse markets. Ford Credit Canada often issues in foreign currencies and converts back into Canadian dollars, Huch added. He would not comment on the exchange rate or maturity of the swap. The underlying bonds have a maturity of five years.

Evolution Markets, an emissions brokerage firm in New York, plans to make a move into the weather derivatives brokering business in New York and open a London office.

Apache Corporation, an oil and gas exploration and production company with an USD8 billion market cap, is considering entering its first interest-rate swap.Matt Dundrea, treasurer in Houston, said the company would enter the swap to increase the portion of floating-rate debt in its portfolio to take advantage of a steep yield curve.

Goldman Sachs is preparing to market a synthetic collateralized debt obligation out of its New York headquarters referenced to a USD1 billion pool of credit-default swaps on U.S. investment-grade names, according to a market official. The deal, dubbed Gremlin, is expected to hit the market in the next two weeks. The official said it is one of the first rated synthetic products to come out of the firm's New York division as the majority of the firm's synthetic deals have been structured and rated in London, the official added. The switch to New York has been prompted by the firm's interest in attracting its U.S.-based clients, while avoiding the inconvenience of marketing a new deal for U.S. investors in a different time zone. The official said it is likely that this will be the first in a series of Gremlin deals structured over the course of the year. Alex Reyfman, v.p. of CDO strategy for Goldman Sachs in New York, declined comment.

PCI Investment Management, a Hong Kong-based asset manager with over USD500 million in assets, is considering buying basket equity options for its USD20 million equity portfolio in the coming months. Walter Wu, executive director, said it would buy puts to protect against a possible fall in the market. The value of Asian stocks is being kept high by foreign investors which have entered the market this year, said Wu. Adding, if these investors move to other markets there could be a dramatic fall in price. "We're an absolute return biased manager," said Wu, noting that at the moment the fund employs a long-only cash equity strategy, coupled with hedging via index futures or options.

Speculative funds purchased euro calls last week as the euro rallied against the greenback to its highest levels of the year, according to foreign exchange options traders in Europe. Nazim Mahrour, foreign exchange options trader at Société Générale in Paris, said U.S.-based hedge funds were the main source of demand for the options. The euro appreciated to USD0.903 Thursday from USD0.89 the week before and one-month implied volatility jumped to 8.7% from 7.6%.

Henderson Global Investors is working on its first EUR1 billion (USD903 million) managed synthetic collateralized debt obligation. The deal, dubbed Baltahazar, is being structured by JPMorgan and is expected to hit the market in June, according to officials familiar with the transaction. Officials at JPMorgan and Henderson declined comment.

Government-owned Korea Development Bank, the first domestic bank to offer credit derivatives in Korea (DW, 12/23), is looking to set up a credit derivatives market making operation within the next 12 months and offer its first synthetic CDO. H.G. Chung, head of financial engineering in Seoul, said the bank will look to establish a market-making operation and hire credit traders to complement the bank's credit structuring capabilities. He noted that it is too early to estimate the size of the operation.

ING Financial Markets has hired David Singer, head of short-term interest-rate trading at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong, as a trader in its emerging markets department, according to Tim Fallowfield, director of emerging markets in Hong Kong. Fallowfield said Singer will start in the coming weeks and replace a trader who left at the start of the year. He declined to name the trader who left.