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Barclays Capital has hired Gregory Hart, an associate interest-rate swap marketer to corporates at Banc of America Securities in New York, in a similar role. Hart reports to Ed Somekh, head of corporate risk management and derivatives in New York, according to Kristin Friel, spokeswoman in New York. Somekh did not return calls and Hart declined comment.

Cargill, the largest privately owned corporate in the U.S., is weighing up converting a recent USD250 million fixed-rate bond into a synthetic floater. Jay Olsom, assistant treasurer in Wayzata, Minn., said the swap is under consideration in order to maintain the corporate's fixed to floating ratio of around 50%.

BNP Paribas has hired Nicholas Kello, former managing director and head of investor coverage for equity derivatives at JPMorgan in New York, as a managing director heading equity derivatives marketing for North American financial institutions. Kello reports to Francois Carnet, head of U.S. equity derivatives, according to Melissa Sherer, spokeswoman in New York. She declined further comment.

Ken MacKenzie, former head of U.S. equity derivatives trading at Citigroup Global Markets, has jumped to hedge fund start up Archeus Capital Management in New York. Gary Kilberg, ceo in New York, confirmed MacKenzie joined the management team as a principal, but declined to detail his responsibilities. MacKenzie, who left Citigroup last month (DW, 10/5), declined comment.

Citigroup has hired Dhimant Shah, credit derivatives trader at ABN AMRO in Singapore, for a similar role in its Hong Kong trading operation. Shah, who started last week, did not return calls. Debashish Dutta Gupta, v.p. in global credit derivatives trading at Citigroup in Hong Kong, said Shah is an addition to the team and part of the firm's plans to expand its credit derivatives effort. It boosted its presence on the structured credit side late last year by forming a CDO team.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is planning to merge its debt syndicate and credit trading group with its credit derivatives operation. The move would combine the departments of DrKW's highest profile credit stars: Sean Park, managing director and global head of debt syndicate and credit trading, and Matteo Mazzochi, global head of credit derivatives and securitization. Rowan Staines, spokeswoman, declined comment.

This is the second in a two-part series examining the U.S. accounting change. Last week's article gave a general overview, this week the authors focus on hedge accounting.

One-month euro/dollar implied volatility spiked to 11.17% last Wednesday, up from 9.8% the week before, as the greenback continued its slide against the single currency in the spot market. Spot traded at USD1.189 on Wednesday, compared with USD1.15 seven days previous, according to a trader. The move was largely attributed to a Bush administration statement on Tuesday saying that the U.S. would impose import quotas on some Chinese textiles, he noted.

Seoul-based Korea Exchange Bank plans to set up a credit derivatives operation next year to take advantage of the growing interest in the instruments. Dennis Chae, an official in the financial engineering department, said the bank plans to structure and invest in products, such as synthetic collateralized debt obligations and credit-linked notes. The move follows the bank's foray into equity derivatives in the spring (DW, 3/10).

Interest rate derivative volumes in Korea, one of the largest Asian swap markets, have shot up dramatically in recent weeks, a stark contrast to the lulls during most of the year. "We're going to have a busy winter," said S.B. Hwang, head of derivatives marketing at Citigroup in Seoul, noting that volumes have picked up by nearly 40% in the last few weeks. Earlier this summer, the Korean fixed income derivatives market endured a drop in activity due to a lack of liquidity and customer interest as rates remained low, which forced major players to cut back their prop trading books (DW, 6/1). The anticipated interest rate rise means there has been a large increase in demand for hedging products. "This relates to the domestic and world economy picking up--there's expectations of rate increases," noted Kwang Ho Park, deputy general manager at Kookmin Bank in Seoul.

Macquarie Research Equities last week turned its quantitative firepower on Saturday's Rugby World Cup clash in Sydney and predicted that Australia will defeat arch rivals England. In the research report, Why the Wallabies will win?, Macquarie's propeller heads weighed the likely impact of factors such as momentum, consensus recommendations and the weather. The authors of the report in Sydney could not be reached for comment. A spokeswoman was unable to comment by press time.