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Ali Sherwani, manager in the portfolio management division of the U.K.'s Export Credits Guarantee Department in London, asked for any AA minus or higher rated banks to give him a ring to talk about buying credit protection. The ECGD has some GBP21 billion (USD38 billion) of debt, most of which is issued by emerging market sovereigns. Sherwani said it entered it's first default swaps in August (DW, 9/8) and has entered some more pilot trades since then. It is now looking at entering more trades and wants to increase the number of counterparties it deals with to ensure the best execution.

Investment banks and asset managers are getting ready to offer equity-default swaps to retail investors.

*Marcus Klug, managing director at UNIQA Alternative Investments, summed up the problem of downgrades: "Obviously if something goes from AAA to CCC, you are screwed."

Credit protection on Canadian paper giant Abitibi Consolidated blew out by 50 basis points last week over concerns the corporate is not able to implement a planned price increase for its newsprint.

Philip McBride Johnson, head of the exchange-traded derivatives practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Washington, commenting on the insurance commissioners' paper that classified weather derivatives as insurance contracts.

Merrill Lynch has hired Joonkee Hong, global head of emerging market derivatives at UBS in Stamford, Conn., as head of debt markets for Korea, based in Hong Kong.

UBS has deepened its derivatives marketing bench in Japan with the hire of Satoru Matsumoto, v.p. in the derivatives structuring and marketing group at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, in the new role of executive director in the fixed income sales group.

Singapore's United Overseas Bank is considering investing or managing synthetic collateralized debt obligations linked to a combination of credit and equity-default swaps before year end.

Bradford & Bingley, a U.K. mortgage lender, is considering converting a EUR300 million (USD370 million) floating-rate bond into floating-rate sterling, but is holding back because of high swap prices.

Wachovia Securities has hired several equity derivatives professionals in the U.S. as part of its plans to beef up its presence.

PT Bank Danamon Indonesia, the country's fifth largest bank, issued the country's largest subordinated bond on Wednesday, when it priced a debut $300m 10 year non-call five issue.

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