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UK mortgage lender RFC Mortgage Services Ltd, a subsidiary of GMAC's Residential Funding Corp, last Friday brought its eighth securitisation to the market, a £600m deal backed by a pool of UK non-conforming mortgages. As one of the first mortgage deals in the market in 2002, RMAC 2002-NS1 was well received and investors responded positively to the GMAC name.

* Banco Santander Central Hispano is preparing to launch Fondo de Titulización Hipotecaria Hipotebansa 10, its 10th securitisation of Spanish residential mortgages. Observers believe that Deutsche Bank or JP Morgan will be awarded the distribution mandate for the Eu900m transaction. The deal was tightly bid in a competitive auction and is expected to be launched next week. * Annington Homes Ltd is expected to launch the tap of Annington Finance No 4 (AF4) on Monday. AF4 was a securitisation of UK ministry of defence housing acquired by Nomura in 1996.

Wachovia Securities will launch syndication of the $180 million credit for Right Management Consultants tomorrow. The credit backs the acquisition of U.K.-based Coutts Consulting Group and refinances existing debt. RMC specializes in career transition and organizational consulting and is buying CCG for approximately $108 million. The bank debt is split between a $90 million revolver and $90 million term loan "A" and is priced at LIBOR plus 2 1/4%. Fleet Bank, UBS Warburg and SunTrust Bank have signed on already said one banker. Lee Bohs, executive v.p., corporate development, did not return calls. A Wachovia spokeswoman declined comment.

Bear Stearns International has hired Reza Rezaeian, convertible arbitrage and default swap trader at Enron Credit in London, as a convertible asset swaps trader. Rezaeian said credit-default swap traders previously handled convertible asset swaps and he is the first and only planned full-time hire.

BNP Paribas is planning to issue synthetic collateralized debt obligations for the first time in non-Japan Asia in the coming months on the back of growing client demand. "It's a natural evolution," said Guillaume Dieu, director and head of Asia Pacific synthetic securitization in Hong Kong. He continued that the firm will look to issue its first synthetic CDO, likely USD1 billion in size, in the next three to six months and possibly two or three additional transactions of the same size later this year.

Kmart continues to rise this week climbing from a high of 68 last week to the 70-71 range by Wednesday. Deutsche Bank is rumored to have participated in a $15 million trade on Tuesday. Dealers who bought the name when it hit the low 50's range are looking to make a quick profit by selling at 70, one trader speculated. Market players believed trading on the name would not be as heavy as last week and that holders of the paper would wait to see if there is anymore potential upside.

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Abbey National Financial Products is about to launch a capital guaranteed FTSE 100 tracker fund that is structured using over-the-counter derivatives. Nigel Cannon, head of equity derivatives marketing in London, said the notes are innovative because they offer 100% participation within what is essentially a capital guaranteed structure, as the FTSE 100 would have to drop by more than 50% in the next five years for investors to lose capital. Traditional capital guaranteed structures do not have that downside feature but usually only offer 70% upside, he noted. "There's a one-for-one downside risk if the market ever falls by more than 50%, but you're talking about the FTSE 100 going below 2,500, and God forbid this market should ever go down that far," he said. The U.K. equity benchmark closed at 5,135 Tuesday.

Banks that sold a European-style dollar/yen double no-touch barrier option with a payout of some USD20-50 million were scrambling last week to cover their exposure as the option looked increasingly likely to expire in the money. Traders said firms short the option have been active selling strangles, in which they sell dollar calls/yen puts struck at the upper barrier and sell dollar puts/yen calls struck at the lower barrier, in order to generate premium in the event the barrier option expires in the money.

Five-year credit-default protection on U.K. telecom company Cable & Wireless blew out 100 basis points Wednesday before tightening to about 70bps wider than the previous week. The move comes amid concern over the telecom operator's accounting practices, which also caused similar widening in the cash bond market and sent its shares to a 12-year low. Mid-market default swaps were quoted around 250bps Thursday, from roughly 180bps earlier in the week.

Euro/dollar one-year implied volatility hit a two-year low last week dropping to 10.4% on Wednesday from 10.7% a week earlier. Demand for options was low as traders cleared out their books ahead of the long weekend in the U.S., according to traders.

CIBC World Markets is structuring a synthetic collateralized debt obligation that market officials said would resemble the firm's first CDO, Imperial 1, which it issued in December (DW, 12/8). The firm is planning to issue the CDO before the end of the first quarter, said one market official.