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The San Diego Padres Baseball Club Limited Partnership, owner of the West Coast Major League Baseball team, is considering pulling the trigger on an interest-rate swap following its planed USD150 million debt offering, according to Fred Gerson, cfo. Proceeds from the debt offering, which is expected to hit the market by late April or early May, have been earmarked for the financing of the Padres' new stadium and to build additional infrastructure around the new ballpark, Gerson said. The company is planning to either issue a bond offering on the back of a bank loan it secures for the stadium or go directly to the bond market for the financing.

Citibank and Credit Lyonnais have separately sold what is considered to be the first won swaption-linked notes in Korea earlier this month. "Customers are attracted to the enhanced yield," noted an official at Citibank in Seoul. He continued that the bank is looking to issue additional notes, ranging between KRW100-200 billion (USD75-150 million) in size, either linked to the five or 10-year swaption rates. Officials at Credit Lyonnais confirmed that it also issued similar notes earlier in the month, declining to elaborate.

Computer Associates went ahead with a USD660 million convertible deal last week after bankers came up structured a call spread that helps mitigate the potential dilution of the company's shares through conversion. CA executives had been resistant to the idea of a convertible offering because they felt the company's stock was trading too low. They believed it would probably rebound to higher levels soon and they didn't want a low conversion price to lead to dilution.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia plans to start offering reverse convertibles to clients by year-end. The move is part of the firm's plans to increase its product range as it focuses on premium clients. "We're looking to expand the sweep of products we offer our clients," said Stephen Richards, head of equity trading and risk at CBA in Sydney. Richards estimated it could sell AUD50-100 (USD26.4-52.9 million) within 12 months of launching the product.

Credit Suisse First Boston has hired Georg Steinig, director in structured product sales to German and Austrian clients at Morgan Stanley in Frankfurt, in a similar role. Steinig will report to Stéphane Diedrich, co-head of German and Austrian sales at CSFB, according to a firm official. Diedrich was travelling and could not be reached.

American Capital Access has hired Joseph Pimbley, head of credit derivatives trading at Sumitomo Mitsui Capital Markets in New York, as a credit derivatives portfolio manager in its structured finance department. Pimbley started last Thursday and reports to Maryam Muessel, coo, according to Cathy Bailey, a spokeswoman at ACA. Muessel heads the structured finance group and overseas the firm's asset-backed security and collateralized debt obligation portfolio management and structuring. Pimbley will specialize in managing and structuring credit derivative products within that group, including CDOs. His position is a newly created one, reflecting growth in the structured finance business of ACA, said Bailey. The department may add more staff in the future but she declined to be more specific.

Deutsche Bank has set up a correlation-trading department in its global commodities group as part of its effort to become a leading commodities house. The firm plans to use its bulge bracket status in the foreign exchange and interest-rate derivatives market to sell commodity-linked products to investors who would not normally enter these markets, such as fixed-income hedge funds, pension funds and retail investors, according to Kerim Derhalli, global head of commodities in London.

Deutsche Bank entered up to USD1 billion (notional) of two-week U.S. dollar/Japanese yen 25-delta risk reversals Tuesday on behalf of a client, according to rival traders in London. A Deutsche Bank trader acknowledged the bank had executed a large customer trade where it bought upside dollar calls/yen puts struck at JPY133.85 and sold downside dollar puts/yen calls struck at JPY130. Spot was JPY131.5 Wednesday and had been as much as a full yen higher the previous day. The Deutsche Bank official declined further comment.

Bryan Seyfried, global head of Enron Credit in London, is reportedly in talks with BNP Paribas about taking a position with the French bank. Two market officials said Seyfried interviewed at BNP last year, before the collapse of Enron, and these negotiations have been reactivated. Officials at BNP Paribas referred questions to Farid Amellal, global head of credit derivatives in London, who did not return calls.

A speculative investor entered USD750 million of one-week 15-delta euro/U.S. dollar risk reversals last week, causing risk reversals to edge further in favor of euro calls. Foreign exchange options traders said a firm bought euro calls/dollar puts at USD0.8985 and sold euro puts/dollar calls struck at USD0.8750. Spot was USD0.88 Friday, down from USD0.8820 the previous day. The trade pushed one-month 25-delta risk reversals to 0.40 in favor of euro calls by Friday, up from 0.25 for much of the week. "They are buying euro upside and are assuming it breaks the key barrier at USD0.8875, that level has been rejected three or four times this week already," said one trader, adding, "the risk/reward looks better than buying euro downside." He and others declined to name the bank that entered the risk reversal, though they noted the trade pays off if either the euro strengthens or if implied volatility, which was unchanged last week at 8.2%, rises.

Five-year credit default swap protection on GE Capital, the finance arm of General Electric widened after the firm's USD11 billion global bond offering on March 13, the second largest issue in U.S. history. Credit-default protection widened about 10 basis points Wednesday hitting a high of 55bps in afternoon trading from roughly 43bps a week earlier. "The bond offering, rumors that the company is going to acquire Tyco's finance unit and the fact that GE has about USD100 million in outstanding commercial paper out there is all coming together and it just keeps widening," said one trader in New York. He added that investment banks were the most active in the market. Officials at GE Capital denied reports Wednesday that it was interested in purchasing CIT Group, the finance unit of Tyco International.

JPMorgan sold a EUR5 billion notional (USD4.4 billion) deep out-of-the-money interest-rate swaption to BNP Paribas on Monday, according to Richard Jackson, euro swaptions trader at JPMorgan in London. Traders called it the biggest trade of the year in the euro swaption market. The transaction gives the French bank a two-year option to enter a two-year swap with JPMorgan, where BNP has the option to receive a 4% fixed-rate pay out. Two-year forward rates are now at 5.5%. A euro swaptions trader at the French bank in London declined comment.