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JD Capital Management, a hedge fund in Greenwich, Conn., has hired Eric Madoff, v.p. in the equities division at Goldman Sachs in New York, to join its relative value strategy team. Madoff reports to David Rogers, the fund's founder. Madoff declined to comment. Rogers did not return calls.

Gen Re Securities, a derivatives and securities dealer which announced Jan. 28 a plan to close down, laid off approximately 60% of its global staff on Thursday, according to a company official. The staff came from all areas of the firm, including interest rate, credit derivatives, equity options and foreign exchange options traders.

Lehman Brothers is relocating its entire Italian fixed income sales force to Milan, according to officials familiar with the plans. The firm plans to have moved between 12-18 staffers by the end of next month. The firm is making the moving because of the success of moving the French team to Paris and the German team to Frankfurt, according to one official.

Merrill Lynch's head of high-yield sales in London, Tim Davenport, has returned to New York to head the firm's corporate derivatives marketing effort.

* UBS Warburg this week launched Apollo Series 2002-1 Trust, a A$500m deal backed by Australian residential mortgages originated by Suncorp Metway Ltd. Two tranches of notes were sold rated AAA and AA, respectively, by both Fitch and Standard & Poor's. WestLB was co-manager.

The IPO market in Thailand is warming up. Following the large and successful PTT float late last year, several other privatisation deals are waiting in the wings and the private sector is once again ready to brave the market as sentiment towards the Thai bourse improves. The Thai stock market is up around 25% this year and investors and analysts are calling strong buys on leading stocks from the banking sector and cornerstone issues such as Siam Cement and Siam City Cement as the construction market turns upwards.

An unexpected sale of 117.1m non-voting News Corp preference shares hit the market yesterday (Thursday) through two lead arrangers, Citigroup/SSB and JP Morgan, which are also supported by Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. The seller is WorldCom, and not Liberty Media, as was previously suggested. News of the issue surprised the market. However, confirmation came when News Corp yesterday announced it will issue to a subsidiary of WorldCom around 121.2m preferred limited voting ordinary shares worth $680m and will also pay WorldCom $250m. This satisfies obligations to WorldCom in connection with the unwinding of their former American Sky Broadcasting (AskyB) direct broadcast satellite joint venture.

The Korean government has awarded the mandate for the sale of state shares in listed Cho Hung Bank to Credit Suisse First Boston, JP Morgan and UBS Warburg. The deal is expected to be just the first in a series of equity issues from Korea's financial sector this year. Many deals are nearing launch as the government aims to sell off state assets and the private sector seeks to raise new capital while sentiment towards Korea and the country's corporate and financial sector restructuring is positive.

CNOOC, the Hong Kong listed unit of China National Offshore Corp, is set to kick off the roadshow for its debut $500m 10 year global bond today (Friday). With the transaction being the first from a Chinese corporate for almost 2-1/2 years and as such offering rare exposure to the WTO entrant nation, bankers expect a strong regional bid.

In a bizarre series of events since Monday, the apparent success of the recent recapitalisation of debt-laden Technology Resources Industries (TRI) has been thrown into doubt. On Monday, the Malaysian bourse said the stock would be listed on Wednesday. On Wednesday the exchange said the listing must be postponed pending further clarification. By yesterday (Thursday), an explanation was far from forthcoming. TRI issued a statement to the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange on Wednesday, which was released at 3.06 pm yesterday. It stated that the company's adviser, Malaysian International Merchant Bankers (MIMB), had received a letter from the KLSE deferring the listing of the new shares "until further notice pending clarification".

Deutsche Bank has built on the success of the jumbo new share issue it underwrote last year for DBS Holdings by winning a new deal to underwrite and place out S$300m of Sembcorp Industries shares. Whereas Sembcorp's efforts to raise S$300m through JP Morgan last March ended in failure, this deal is supported by more positive market conditions and a hard underwriting commitment from the German bank. Sembcorp announced its 2001 results on Wednesday and said it would place up to S$300m worth of new shares. The company's profits were up 51% to S$176.1m for the financial year ended December 31.

Indonesia Indonesia's real GDP growth was 3.3% in 2001. While this fell short of the government's 3.5% target, it did beat most Asian countries. Analysts said that the country's fourth quarter growth alone was 3.4% quarter on quarter. They added that exports and fixed investment were disappointing at the end of 2001, although improving global demand should help exports this year.