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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.

Two senior Goldman Sachs derivatives professionals have joined Cheyne Capital Management, a convertible bond fund manager with USD1.1 billion in assets, to develop its investment grade credit business, particularly through the use of CDOs referenced to both bonds and credit derivatives. David Peacock, executive director and head of portfolio synthetics, and John Weiss, executive director and head of the global correlation book at Goldman in London, have joined as portfolio managers and plan to launch a series of managed CDOs it will issue in partnership with a structuring and distribution agent. Peacock said it will chose its counterparties from among the major international derivatives houses.

Vishal Tourani, equity derivatives analyst at Credit Lyonnais in Hong Kong, has resigned due to personal reasons. "I'm looking to take some time off from the industry--as well as watch the Hong Kong Sevens," he said, referring to the international rugby tournament. Tourani was part of the derivatives team that revived the firm's role as a structurer of warrants on baskets of Chinese B shares last year, four years after pioneering the first basket (DW 6/10). He reported to Jean Paul Brasier, head of equity derivatives in Tokyo. Brasier was on vacation and could not be reached.

ISDA master agreement negotiations are often never-ending, expensive and tedious. Negotiations can take months as parties battle over legal, business and credit terms. Although much has been done to standardize the documentation process, there are still numerous issues that parties must negotiate prior to executing the ISDA master agreement. In addition, parties often insist on making additional amendments to the ISDA master agreement that they believe are necessary to minimize legal and credit risks.

Salomon Smith Barney has hired Dan Breen, a private tax consultant, as a managing director in its equity derivatives division in New York. Breen, who has 20-years of equity derivatives experience, has been working as a consultant since leaving Bankers Trust when it was bought by Deutsche Bank in 1999. He will report to Len Ellis, head of structured equity product sales in New York. Ellis said Breen will focus on structuring tax efficient equity derivatives products, but declined further comment. Breen could not be reached for comment.