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Tony Kearney, a hedge fund currency marketer at J.P. Morgan Chase in London, has joined Credit Suisse First Boston as director of global account sales in the global treasury product sales group. Kearney will report to Rusty Elvidge and David Newman, co-heads of treasury product sales in London and New York, respectively, according to a spokeswoman. Kearney is expected to start next month.

Kjell Ekdahl, North American head of equity derivatives marketing at BNP Paribas in New York, has accepted a position at Robertson Stephens in San Francisco. A rival equity derivatives official noted that Ekdahl was the most senior member of BNP Paribas' equity derivatives marketing team, so his departure will leave a substantial void in that group, which may adversely affect the firm's ability to attract quality equity derivatives marketers. A spokesman for BNP Paribas confirmed that Ekdahl has left the firm, but declined further comment.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is structuring capital guaranteed products with long-dated zero-coupon bonds in a novel twist designed to provide a fatter potential payout on the option component. Matthias Schellenberg, head of equity structured product sales for Germany and Austria in Frankfurt, said the issue price for a 30-year zero is approximately 20% of the redemption value whereas the price for a three-year zero is about 80% of the redemption value. By purchasing the cheaper 30-year zero, Dresdner can spend more on an option to provide upside participation.

Deutsche Bank is believed to have pocketed over EUR100 million (USD89.4 million) after reportedly squeezing repo traders in a massive interest-rate futures position. The German bank was able to take advantage of illiquidity in the cheapest-to-deliver bond that would have been used to settle a long futures position it entered, in a move that drew sharp criticism from some City rivals. Repeated calls to Deutsche Bank's trading desk and to spokespersons were not returned.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is preparing to offer options on alternative investments within the next couple of months. Robin Farrell, head of the alternative investments group in London, said demand for these products has picked up recently because there is a greater impetus to invest in hedge funds in a bear market. The group already writes guaranteed notes on mutual funds and Farrell said it is the next step to offer the same products on baskets of hedge funds. Options on hedge funds are harder to structure than mutual funds because the underlying is less liquid.

Several foreign banks, includingStandard Chartered Bank, are pitching for a piece of a multimillion dollar cross currency interest-rate swap that Korean Asset Management Co. (KAMCO) is expected to enter later this year. KAMCO is looking to enter a series of swaps to convert floating rate loans totaling USD1 billion into synthetic Korean won-denominated fixed-rate liabilities, according to swappers in the local market.

Germany-based heavy industrial group Thyssenkrupp has entered into USD600 million (notional) of interest-rate swaps to hedge a series of floating rate loans against possible U.S. interest rate hikes. Rainer Verhoeven, junior treasury manager in Düsseldorf, said the five-to-eight year swap-rate is now below the company's funding rate so it has decided to enter swaps to hedge the $800 million in loans. He declined to reveal the company's funding rate.

Crédit Agricole Indosuez is considering offering weather derivatives to its clients. Pierre Valentin, head of derivatives at CPR, a 92%-owned subsidiary of CAI in Paris, said it is researching weather patterns and looking at how to price products. "This is a big job," he added, declining to reveal when it might enter the market.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has set up a credit derivatives market practices committee whose first goal is to sort out the debate over restructuring as a credit event. Although ISDA has tried to help sort out the debate over restructuring with a profusion of committees, task forces, and working groups, this group is different: it's staffed mainly with traders and portfolio managers rather than lawyers, said Blythe Masters, managing director and head of North American structured credit products and asset-backed securities at J.P. Morgan in New York and co-head of the group. The committee also has a deadline it is seeking to meet, which is the beginning of April, in time for the ISDA Annual General Meeting.

E.ON Trading and MVV separately are planning to use weather derivatives for the first time to hedge exposure on their electricity and natural gas trading books. Oliver Podehl, an electricity trader responsible for the weather derivatives project at E.ON Trading in Munich, said it has not hedged weather risk previously because of manpower limitations. He expects at least two more power traders to join the 20-25 strong team in the next month and the long-term plan is to double this number. He declined to give a time frame for the doubling. The extra personnel will allow E.ON to trade more products. The company also needs to finalize internal pricing tools and risk management mechanisms before it starts trading.