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The weather derivatives market was buzzing with reports last week that Enron plans to put its weather desk on the block. "People are saying the desk is one of the things Enron would definitely sell as part of a plan to unload assets. Any bank looking to break into the market would definitely be interested," said a weather trader. With Dynegy and Enron reportedly pushing to complete their USD10.5 billion merger by next summer, traders speculated that Enron's 50-strong weather business could be among the causalities of the union. Calls to spokesmen at Dynegy and Enron were not returned before press time. Mark Tawney, head of Enron's weather desk, also did not return calls.

Fitch plans to hire six or seven collateralized debt obligation professionals for its London-based CDO rating team because of the increase in the number of deals coming to the market. Mitchell Lench, senior director in London, said it has about 15 CDOs in the pipeline this month in comparison to five or six this time last year, approximately one-third of these are synthetic or balance sheet transactions.

Siam Commercial Bank, with over THB700 billion (USD15 billion) in assets, is planning to extend its investments in credit derivatives to include credit-default swaps next year. SCB is looking to sell credit-default swaps to take on exposure to businesses it does not have lending relationships with, such as non-Thai organizations. The move comes on the back of the bank wanting to diversify its portfolio because of the deteriorating credit quality of local corporates, said an official.

In the dollar market, numbers speak louder than words. Over $80bn of $1bn plus deals for sovereign, supranational and non-US public sector issuers has hit the market already this year - double the figure for 1999. Add in the $170bn supplied by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it is clear that investors are spoilt for choice. Here, Seb Boyd reports on the strategies borrowers are pursuing to promote themselves in the dollar market.

BAA, the owner and operator of seven U.K. airports, is considering entering an interest-rate swap on the back of a recent 30-year GBP700 million (USD1 billion) bond offering. The company priced the bonds earlier this month on the same day as the Bank of England and European Central Bank cut rates by 50 basis points. Wan Chow, treasury manager in London, said the bond offering was opportunistic and as a result the company has not yet decided whether it will convert the fixed-rate bond into a floating-rate liability. The airport owner pays a fixed 5.75% coupon on the bond.

BNP Paribas is planning to issue one of the first synthetic collateralized debt obligations referenced to portfolios of Japanese credit-default swaps this week and Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan are hot on the French bank's heels with similar deals lined up for the first quarter.

Toronto-based BMO Nesbitt Burns is looking to beef up its equity derivatives trading group in preparation for the firm's first foray into the U.S. equity derivatives market. Patrick Cronin, managing director of the firm's equity derivatives group, said he is looking to hire about 10 equity derivatives professionals, mostly traders, over the next several months. The traders will be split between the Toronto and New York offices.

Deutsche Bank is planning to sell equity-linked notes that will allow investors to gain exposure to an equity index at its low point for the year by using a lookback option. The product marks the first time lookbacks have been packaged into a certificate and sold to retail investors, as they were previously only used by institutional investors, according to Johan Groothaert, managing director and head of equity structured products and alternative investments in London. Several rivals corroborated the claim and said the product appears to be the first of its kind.

Commerzbank Securities is touting several foreign exchange option strategies to take advantage of its expectation that the strength in the U.S. dollar is a temporary blip, sparked by military successes in Afghanistan. Fundamental weakness in the U.S. economy will see a reversion to a lower greenback against the euro, the bank believes.

Enron Credit has virtually shut down in the wake of the agreement by Dynegy to acquire its parent Enron, according to an official at the firm in London. The team has all but stopped trading because counterparties are wary of taking on additional exposure to the company, particularly because of uncertainty about the future role of Enron Credit within the merged entity. Dynegy has stated it wants to concentrate on Enron's core businesses and market professionals said it is unlikely Enron Credit would meet that description. Alex Parsons, a spokesman at Enron in London, did not return calls by press time.

J. David Rogers, a former Goldman Sachs equity derivatives star, has started a hedge fund firm called JD Capital Management and is looking to hire a staff of about 22, most of whom will be traders and researchers. The Greenwich, Conn.-based firm plans to launch the multi-strategy hedge fund in February and hopes to raise USD350-400 million, Rogers said. He declined to detail the fund's current size of assets.