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UBS Warburg has hired two marketers to sell structured credit and interest-rate derivatives products to the insurance sector, said Michael Ice, managing director and head of North American structured marketing and sales within the interest-rate/foreign exchange group in Stamford, Conn. The firm also plans to hire an associate for the group. Glenn Taitz joins from Merrill Lynch as executive director of structured products and will market interest-rate and credit products to life insurance and property and casualty companies. And Wim Ludington, also an executive director, comes via JPMorgan and will focus on selling structured credit products to reinsurance companies. The two form the insurance sales group for interest-rate and structured products. Both report to Ice, who said the hires do not reflect a new effort as "[selling to] insurance companies can't be a new initiative," but he noted they do mark an increased emphasis on the sector.

WestLB has hired four credit derivatives professionals from Commerzbank Capital Markets in New York, according to Commerzbank officials. The four--Peter Tchir, Joe Carroll, Vitali Fiks and Ed D'Allesandro--formed the core of Commerzbank's credit derivatives operation in New York. Tchir headed up the structuring effort which included Carroll and Fiks. D'Allesandro was a flow trader.

"There will not be a trading book. There will be no Enrons here."--Ralf Lierow, director of portfolio management for the European equipment and sales financing department at Siemens Financial Services in Munich, commenting on the company's plans to sell credit protection. Click here for complete story.

"WorldCom is AARRRRRGGHHHH".... It was tough getting info Friday morning, as some desks tuned into the World Cup match between the U.S. and Germany. One trader answered his phone and started to answer a question when he abruptly joined in a frustrated, anguished scream that went across his trading floor as a U.S. chance turned into a near miss.

Marty Margolis, portfolio manager with Public Financial Management, says he will rotate his firm's short and intermediate fund by 8%, or $200 million, from agencies into Treasuries. The reason for the move, he says, is because agency bonds in the less than two-year maturity range have seen their spreads over Treasuries tighten by eight to 10 basis points during the second quarter, which makes them eligible for liquidation as spreads are bound to widen, he says.

This chart, provided by Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney Inc., tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities that trade in the secondary market. It also tracks facility amounts, ratings, pricing and maturities.

Cavanaugh Capital Management is considering shortening duration by selling U.S. agency debentures and adding mortgage-backed and corporate bonds in two- to five-year maturities. Jim Dugan, portfolio manager overseeing $400 million in taxable fixed income, says the firm will seek to reduce its agency exposure by 6-8% in its $80 million core composite portfolio. The 3.9-year duration of the core composite portfolio is slightly short its bogey, the 4.32-year Lehman Brothers aggregate index. Dugan says the firm may look to bring duration down to 3.5 years. It will begin buying once 10-year Treasury yields show signs of stability. Last Monday, they were at 4.85%--representing a drop of 16 basis points in five days. Dugan says the firm is not looking for an absolute level before investing, but it will continue to wait as long as such a rate of appreciation for Treasuries persists.

Investec Asset Management is ramping up its allocation to European high-yield bonds. "With a reasonably sanguine outlook for economic growth, there is significant space for high-yield to perform," says Michael Markham, London-based head of credit, who manages $600 million in spread product. The firm has been actively buying, in an effort to buy names set to benefit from an economic recovery, except telcos. It recently bought Sanitec's new issue on the view the company, which manufactures bathroom fixtures, will benefit from a pick-up in general house building. Investec is also considering Kronos, which makes titantium oxide--the essential ingredient in white paint, and Herbalife, a vitamins and healthcare products company.

Roughly $80 million of Comdisco bank debt was believed to have traded out of Morgan Stanley at the 82 3/8 - 83 level last week. Traders said the bank won an auction that occurred on June 14 and promptly placed the paper with an undisclosed buyer or buyers. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman declined to comment.

J.P. Morgan and Salomon Smith Barney are preparing a bank facility for Swift & Co--the name given to the ConAgra Foods' beef and pork processing business, the majority of which was acquired by Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst in a $1.4 billion deal last month. The credit is said to include a $200 million "B" term loan, but pricing, timing of the launch and other tranches could not be ascertained. Officials at the banks and a ConAgra spokesman did not return calls by press time.

Tom Cornacchia, a veteran mortgage-backed securities salesman at Credit Suisse First Boston, left the firm early last week to join Goldman Sachs. An ex-CSFB individual says Cornacchia covered some of the more active managers in the MBS market, including Clinton Group and WAMCO, and was considered a "big producer." He reported to Tom Guba, head of structured product sales at CSFB, who was traveling last Friday and unavailable to comment. A call to John Sobol, head of MBS at Goldman Sachs, was not returned at press time.