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Patrick Sollinger, head of index trading at Commerzbank in Tokyo, has resigned, according to officials at the firm. He reported to Tim Reed, Asia head of derivatives in Tokyo. Reed declined all comment and Sollinger could not be reached.

Morgan Stanley has appointed Jordi Visser, a managing director in its index options trading group, as a managing director and head of hedge fund sales for its equity derivatives group in New York. Visser, who confirmed his appointment but declined further comment, replaces Bill Levy. Levy left Morgan Stanley in early April to become the co-head of the global equity derivatives marketing group at Lehman Brothers in New York (DW, 4/7).

Deutsche Bank has released price talk for BMORE, a Eu100m securitisation for Banco Mais, Portugal's largest independent auto loan financier. The 4.5 year triple-A floater, worth Eu87.5m, will come at 32bp over Euribor, while the Eu7m and Eu5.5m 6.7 year subordinated tranches, rated A1/A and triple-B respectively, will be priced at 80bp and 150bp.

Westdeutsche Immobilienbank, a subsidiary of WestLB, this week launched its first synthetic securitisation, a Eu957.932m deal backed by commercial mortgages from across Europe and North America. Almost 58% of the loans are on US properties. The investors, all European, expressed concern over exposure to prime New York business districts in the wake of September 11. "For synthetic CMBS transactions we see most of the investor demand coming from Germany, primarily banks," said Glenn Davies, director in the WestLB debt syndicate in Düsseldorf. "Investors were concerned by the amount of US properties but the portfolio statistics are very strong and overall diversity is good."

Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco) this week launched its first European collateralised debt obligation, a Eu358.5m fund pooling predominantly investment grade leveraged loans, mezzanine loans and high yield bonds. Lead managed by Deutsche Bank, Intercontinental CDO is Pimco's second CDO in as many weeks. Last Tuesday the asset manager launched a $250m investment grade deal in the US, via Lehman Brothers.

Investors flocked to Portuguese lease backed paper this week as Banco Internacional do Funchal and Banco Espírito Santo launched repeat securitisations via Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas. The surge in Portuguese issuance follows a four month hiatus, despite the passing of a new securitisation law in November 2001 designed to make the securitisation process less complex. A third Portuguese deal will come from Banco Mais later this month via Deutsche Bank

The credit problems that have pervaded US arbitrage collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) for the last two years are beginning to eat into the European market. Fitch this week downgraded the three lowest rated tranches of Eurostar I CDO, a Eu327m deal managed by DWS Finanz-Service, a subsidiary of Deutsche Asset Management.

UK non-conforming mortgage lender, Kensington Group, this week brought its 14th structured finance transaction to the market with the £360m RMS12 via WestLB. Kensington continues to meet with success and tight pricing in the market. Like RMS11 of October last year, this deal included a senior dollar piece sold to US money market funds under rule 2a7 of the Investment Company Act, an unusual technique for a non-US issuer. All investors on this tranche were new to Kensington.

Central America took centre stage in the market this week when the region's first publicly rated mortgage securitisations were launched, one by a Belize-based government agency and the other by two Costa Rican banks. The market had been waiting for these transactions since the summer of 2001 and the deal arrangers were elated to have reached the home straight despite continuing troubles in Argentina.

Vuk Bulajic, who resigned last week from his position as head of U.S. equity derivatives at BNP Paribas in New York (DW, 4/22), has joined CDC IXIS Capital Markets North America to replace William Toy, head of U.S. equity derivatives sales and trading. Toy, who resigned earlier this week, will stay on as a consultant, according to an insider. Bulajic confirmed the move but declined further comment. Reasons for Toy's departure could not be determined. Toy did not return calls.

Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Smith Barney are on the road with a $250 million senior note offering for NMHG Holding Co., a holding company for NACCO Industries, in addition to the $175 million three-year revolver launched at the start of the month. The agencies have given the lift-truck company loan a BB-/B1 rating, according to a banker. Pricing on the credit is LIBOR plus 3%, with a 1/2% upfront fee. The company is refinancing existing debt, he said. CSFB is the syndication agent and Salomon is the administration agent on the loan. Price talk on the notes could not be ascertained and Ira Gamm, manager of investor relations for the company, declined comment until the note offering is complete.