Search results for

Rick Weinstein, managing director and head of credit derivatives at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London, has become global head of credit derivatives structuring and Javier Martin-Artajo, head of credit derivatives trading in London, will now be global head of credit derivatives trading and co-head of the group. The two new positions were created because of the growing importance of the trading business and follows the appointment of Paul Lewitt, co-head of credit derivatives at Westdeutsche Landesbank in London, as head of credit derivatives flow trading. Lewitt reports to Martin-Artajo.

The day of September 11 will have a particular significance for ABS bankers, many of whom were gathered in Berlin a year ago to attend a conference on northern European securitisation. Away from the bustle of syndicate desks and computer screens, bankers, rating analysts and investors were all looking forward to a day of jovial celebration. Instead it was one of grief and incomprehension.

HypoVereinsbank launched an Eu830m managed collateralised debt obligation this week, one of a number of CDOs edging into the European market after the summer break. Upper Thames SA offered five tranches of five year soft bullet notes below a Eu705.5m credit default swap. Originally all notes were to be denominated in euros, but a dollar tranche of $10m was added in response to investor demand.

Dominican Republic Banca IMI's $170m project financing to develop six airports in the Dominican Republic is due to reach the market at the end of September or in October.

Personal investment loans returned to the asset backed market this week as NM Rothschild & Sons launched a Eu140m securitisation of loans to its high net worth private clients, secured on with-profits life insurance policies. The asset class first emerged in the late 1990s when Dutch securities house Bank Labouchere launched a series of deals backed by retail share lease contracts.

The bank debt of Qwest Communications International was believed to have traded around the 88 1/2 level this week after reportedly receiving relief from one of its covenants. The company's debt-to-EBITDA ratio was scheduled to drop from 4.25 times to four times at the end of the year, but an amendment increased the allowable leverage ratio to six times for the life of the loan.

Lehman Brothers and Commerzbank Securities are pitching trades based on a bullish view of the Canadian dollar. Eric Ohayon, head of foreign exchange structuring at Lehman in London, said investors are showing some signs of returning appetite for risk, which has historically been positive for the Canadian dollar as they look for higher yielding peripheral trades. The firms' views on volatility, however, diverge, as Lehman is expecting short-term volatility to fall and Commerzbank expects it to remain high.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has published a blueprint for the new equity derivatives definitions it plans to publish before year end. One of the most significant changes is the clarification of mergers and the options that are available to deal with these events in derivatives contracts, said Karl Rogers, director and head of legal counsel for trading and derivatives at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London. In the 1996 definitions all the shares of the companies involved in a merger had to be transferred to the new entity in order for the option to also be transferred, which caused problems if minority shareholders kept shares. The most recent example of this was the Mannesmann and Vodafone merger. But, the new definitions have a tender offer clause in which derivatives professionals can select options from a menu depending on how many of the shares are transferred.

HVB Asia, the Asian arm of Germany's HypoVereinsbank, is gearing up its newly minted Asia structuring operation to offer foreign exchange and equity-linked products. "This is a core area for us in Europe and the States and we wanted to bring this to Asia," said Nick Hamilton, managing director of securitization and credit trading in Singapore.