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BP Oil International is looking to hire an oil derivatives salesman for its London-based oil trading team. The hire would act as a liaison between BP and its end user clients of oil derivatives as part of the crude trading team. Mark Sturgess, manager of crude trading in London, confirmed the company is looking to make the hire but declined further comment except to say the oil derivatives salesman will report to Sturgess and Grahame Cook, who is also a London-based manager of crude trading.

Credit Suisse First Boston is looking to beef up its presence as a structurer of high-yield credit derivatives. Joe Russell, global head of leveraged finance trading in New York, said the firm will look to add two senior traders and possibly a structurer, though it has yet to be determined whether CSFB will move staff internally or hire externally. Russell said credit derivatives, traditionally associated with investment-grade credits, have increasingly begun to trade on high-yield and bank loan desks. Russell attributes the increased popularity to the increasingly volatile credit environment of the last 12-18 months. He would not disclose specific clients who have demanded credit derivatives, though he said the product is particularly popular with hedge funds.

Deutsche Bank has hired Olivier Vigneron, correlation trader at Goldman Sachs in London, in a similar role. He will report to Mark Stainton, head of exotic credit-derivatives trading in London, according to Antonio Di Flumeri, global co-head of investment-grade credit derivatives trading in London.

WestLB has tapped its future flow securitisation for Türkiye Vakiflar Bankasi (Vakifbank), backed by diversified MT-100 payment rights from correspondent banks in Europe and the US. Vakif Finance Co Ltd, a Jersey SPV, issued a single $200m tranche in June 2001. This week WestLB launched a further $200m tranche with a two year average life and a three year maturity. The notes were priced at 350bp over three month Libor.

Scottish Power will release details next week of the £1.9bn restructuring of Southern Water Services, its UK utility subsidiary, expected to be carried out by the end of March. Lead managed by Credit Suisse First Boston and RBS Financial Markets, the deal will ringfence £100m of existing debt with proceeds from the new issue, raising the water company's gearing to around 90% of its regulatory asset value (RAV) of about £2.1bn.

Iccrea Banca, the central bank for Italy's cooperative banking system, is preparing to launch a Eu889.6m club funding vehicle for 117 cooperative banks across Italy. Arranged by Merrill Lynch and Iccrea, with CDC Ixis, SG and Iccrea leading the bond placement, the deal is designed to open a new avenue of funding for Italy's regional, unrated cooperative banks. The banks are mutually owned, and their lending activities are restricted.

First time issuer Leasimpresa, a subsidiary of Banca Popolare di Verona (BPV), entered the Italian securitisation market this week with a Eu666.9m lease backed deal via joint bookrunners BNP Paribas and UBS Warburg. Leasimpresa Finance Srl issued two tranches of FRNs, expected to mature as 4.25 year soft bullets in May 2006. The Eu623.9m senior tranche, rated triple-A by Moody's and Standard & Poor's, was priced at 99.922 with a coupon of 31bp over three month Euribor to give a spread of 33bp. The Eu43m single-A piece came at 80bp over.

Annington Homes Ltd, the company through which Nomura acquired the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) housing estate in 1996, this week launched a tap of Annington Finance No 4 (AF4), one of its securitisations of MoD housing. Initial plans from lead managers Barclays Capital and UBS Warburg included a new £250m fixed rate tranche, rated triple-B, and the possibility of a further triple-B tranche subject to investor demand, offered with a zero coupon.

Caja de Ahorros de Valencia, Alicante y Castellón (Bancaja), Spain's fourth largest savings bank, this week launched a Eu600m securitisation of loans to Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Lead managed by JP Morgan (books), Bancaja and Crédit Agricole Indosuez, the deal is the second securitisation this month of so-called PYME loans. These are loans to SMEs eligible for cheap credit from the Spanish government.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association plans to take the next step in revising its original credit derivatives definitions, which date back to 1999. The trade body has sent out the new definitions in draft form and plans to hold a video conference on Monday. Credit derivatives officials said the definitions are being revised to consolidate supplements, such as convertible deliverability, and to tighten up some of the technical language, both of which would make credit derivatives a more efficient product.

Three months after launching its high-yield credit-default swap index, JPMorgan has added BB and B-rated tranches. The BB tranche offers a fixed 8.625% coupon on a basket of 55 names, while the B-rated tranche offers a fixed 9.875% coupon on 44 names, according to an official at the firm. He added that the move to include the tranches on the index was made to meet investor demand for more targeted risk exposure to the market. He declined to comment further.

Allied Waste's term loans "B" and "C" traded up to 99 this week from 98 1/8 last Thursday as traders reported investors were showing more interest in the credit trading roughly $10 -20 million in the name. Dealers said institutional players were replacing lower performing names in portfolios with Allied Waste, a strong par name.