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Bedford, Mass.-based filtration and purification technology provider Millipore is talking with its lead banks, FleetBoston Financial and ABN AMRO, about refinancing its current $175 million revolving credit agreement. Janet Frick, assistant treasurer for Millipore, said the loan matures in January and this is the primary reason for arranging a new revolver. She declined to comment on whether the same banks would lead the facility, but she said a new loan would be syndicated rather than just rolled over with existing banks.

The following is a list of collateralized loan and debt obligations rated by Moody's Investors Service for the year to May 22 Fitch and for the year to April 1. Information from Standard & Poor's can be obtained at www.standardandpoors.com in the structured finance section of the Resource Center.

The market for credit-default swaps on Argentina--which has effectively been shut for several weeks--is expected to return this week when donor organizations announce the amount of new loans they will provide the troubled sovereign. Traders said there is too much uncertainty to trade default swaps at the moment and this will not change until the International Monetary Fund decides on the amount of funding it will provide. Greg Gentile, associate and Latin America credit derivatives trader at Lehman Brothers in New York, said there has not been an inter-bank market in protection on Argentina for three weeks, because the risk of default was so high. He added, "It is like buying a lottery ticket."

Decillion Investment Management plans to increase the use of derivatives in a recently launched convertible arbitrage fund by raising capital from external investors. Derek Watson, advisor to the fund in Nyon, Switzerland, said it hopes to raise EUR25 million (USD22.8 million) by year-end and then close the fund when it reaches EUR300 million, which he predicts will be within two years. The fund uses interest-rate swaps, credit default swaps and asset swaps to isolate the equity component of convertible bonds.

Citibank structured the first constant maturity swap in the local Indian market last month, said an official at the bank in Mumbai. One of the largest local corporates entered the swap on the back of a bond issuance as a way to manage interest-rate risk, he said. He declined to name the counterparty or reveal details of the bond. A rival banker said constant maturity swaps have not been executed before in the Indian market because most Indian corporates are too cautious to enter exotic derivatives.

Enron plans to add a tradable precipitation index to its EnronOnline trading system within a month. Bjarne Scheildrop, director of Nordic weather trading in Oslo, said it is adding the index because of demand from energy companies in the region.

An Australian and a U.S. energy company last week entered into what is believed to be the first weather derivative basket option based on four cities in Australia. The payout on the November to March contract, which covers the Australian summer, is capped at USD4 million and was brokered by United Weather in Jersey City, N.J. Philippe Chauvancy, director of United Weather Europe, said the basket option is based on Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. He declined to name the counterparties.

Deutsche Bank has hired Gohir Anwar, responsible for derivatives sales to U.K. insurance companies at BNP Paribas in London, and Kevin Corcoran, derivatives sales at Barclays Capital in London, as directors in its relative value group. Both will report to Marzio Keiling, head of the relative value group for northern Europe. Anwar and Corcoran will focus on structured credit product sales to U.K. banks and insurance companies, according to a spokeswoman. She said both of these positions are expansions and reflect Deutsche Bank's strategy to grow its U.K. credit business. She declined further comment. Anwar directed calls to press officers and Corcoran, who has not started yet, could not be reached.

GFI Group has set up a weather derivatives desk in New York to broker plain-vanilla and exotic weather derivatives. Donald Fewer, president and ceo of GFI North America, said the desk started brokering plain-vanilla derivatives, such as heating degree-day and cooling degree-day contracts at the beginning of the month, and plans to add exotics within a year. The exotics would include correlation trades, such as options, which have a temperature trigger but pay out in natural gas, and knock-out and knock-in options.

Sun International Hotels, a Bahamas-based international resort and gaming company, is considering entering an interest-rate swap to convert fixed-interest rates on USD500 million in high-yield debt into a synthetic floating-rate liability. Omar Palacios, director of investor relations in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., explained, "I think right now is a good opportunity because of the steep curve." The company would enter swaps on three bond offerings that carry coupons of 8.75%, 8.68% and 9%. Palacios said it is too early to determine the rates the company would seek to pay and receive in the swap. He added it is likely to be a plain-vanilla swap with a maturity of two-to-five years.