The British Bankers’ Association’s Credit Derivatives Report 2005/06 was unveiled at the BBA’s third annual credit derivative conference held in London on September 21. In 2004 the BBA survey predicted that the global credit derivative market in 2006 would be $8.2 trillion but it is actually $20.2 trillion.

Further regulation on delivery needed, says consultant.

Investors get fat yields as rating agencies seek extra credit enhancement.

52,300,000,000 funds raised in IPOs in dollars in the Emea region so far this year. That’s 60% up on funds raised over the same period in 2005.

Italian regional authorities’ healthcare securitizations are under threat following the ratings of Lazio, Campania and Abruzzo being placed on negative watch by Standard & Poor’s. Threats to the accounting treatment given by Eurostat and also domestic authorities point to the regions’ healthcare securitizations being classed as debt. This gave S&P the jitters over how they would continue to fund their healthcare deficits.

Although NYSE member firms that conduct business with the public reported second-quarter 2006 after-tax profits of $2.95 billion and revenues of $78.64 billion, up from $1.13 billion and $53.32 billion in the second quarter of 2005, specialists reported a fall in both after tax profit and revenue. For the second quarter of 2006, NYSE specialists reported after-tax profit of just $26 million. During the same period in 2005, the specialists reported an after-tax profit of $33 million. Total specialist revenue in Q2 of 2006 was $215 million, compared with $220 million in Q2 of 2005.

JPMorgan Cazenove has moved quickly to replace David Sismey, who left for Goldman Sachs in August with Chris Babington, who has worked at Deutsche Bank for three years. He is an experienced FIG originator, previously at BNP Paribas and Paribas before the merger. He joins JPMorgan Cazenove as a director reporting to John Mayne, head of debt capital markets. He will look after northern Europe, with a particular focus on the UK. “We are pleased to have Babington joining us. Clients like him and we were very fortunate that he was looking for a change,” says Mayne.

Australia is going ahead with a scaled-down sale of its Telstra holdings. But tension persists between the telecom operator and the government.

Michael Walsh of hedge fund Kilkenny Capital Management talks to Helen Avery about the fund’s melding of information about medical innovators’ development and sales processes with finance theory to assess biotechs’ future value.

Appointment expected to renew exchange’s focus on stagnant volumes in options contracts.

Czech financial group PPF Group has bought three banks in Ukraine – PrivatInvest, PrivatKredit and Bank Agrobank – paying $18 million for the PrivatInvest acquisition.

FXMarketSpace has made four senior appointments as it gears up for its launch in 2007. Two of the appointments, Jane Forster and Dan Rosenberg, have been lured from rival EBS. Yigal Oren moves over from Reuters, FXMarketSpace’s 50% owner, and Debra Rabichow comes from futures commission merchant Goldenberg, Heymer & Co.

Enormous energy is going into the creation of new Shariah-compliant finance structures for eager Middle Eastern corporates to fund themselves by appealing to Islamic investors and their growing pool of money. Every market participant expects the surging Islamic finance sector to keep on growing fast. But a key element is missing. Secondary trading in these instruments is severely limited. Sudip Roy suggests that for the recent increase in primary market activity to be sustainable, more attention needs to be devoted to trading infrastructure.

From a research note entitled The largest OTC exchange

For 11 months the European Central Bank has been engaged in a gradual tightening of monetary policy or, to use the more nuanced language of ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet, a “progressive withdrawal of monetary accommodation”. The financial markets and commentators have learnt to read quite accurately the code words – such as “strong vigilance”, “vigilance”, “continuing to monitor closely” – used by the ECB to signal what its next move is likely to be.

As a consequence of Merrill Lynch’s revolving door policy in FX, Steve Kemp has resigned from the Foreign Exchange Committee. Kemp, just one of the many global FX heads Merrill has had over the past decade, left the bank this summer. Merrill has had few representatives on the Federal Exchange Bank of New York-sponsored committee, which is seen as a prestigious role in the market. Members have to be invited on and there is no guarantee that Merrill will get to sit at the top table again.

In the article in the September issue of Euromoney entitled, "How

Although benchmarking has a part to play in some areas, there is no single approach to best execution that suits all markets.

Stocks traded on emerging market stock exchanges now account for 16% of global equities, according to Standard & Poor’s. However, despite these stocks’ growing weight and in many cases improvements in transparency and corporate governance, investors remain fickle. According to data from Emerging Portfolio Fund Research, a fund flows tracker, investors pulled $15 billion from emerging market stocks between mid-May and mid-September, reducing the year-to-date cumulative inflow to $17 billion.

The possibility that the long end of the US yield curve might continue to invert has supported long-end issuance from international sovereign and supranational issuers.

Most investors want to invest in the best companies; Asia is no exception to this. The region’s best-managed companies are a diverse bunch but have some crucial characteristics in common. Chris Leahy reports.

Vallimarescu eyes opportunities in local markets.

The postponement because of rain of the annual charity hedge fund polo tournament in Darien, Connecticut, meant a few key players were unable to make it, but it didn’t stop play altogether.

Hope Pascucci has resigned as joint global head of global capital markets at Deutsche Bank after six months in the role, to spend more time with her family. She has moved to Boston with her children and husband, Mike Pascucci, who retired from Merrill Lynch last year where he was head of credit trading. She was previously global head of debt capital markets and before that European head of DCM and global head of syndicate. Having joined Deutsche in 2000 and spearheaded the bank’s rise up the debt league tables, Pascucci is one of the best-known figures in the euro market. Thomas Gahan is the new sole head of GCM. He reports to Anshu Jain and Michael Cohrs, joint heads of the investment bank. Pascucci’s effective replacement is Ivor Dunbar, the new head of global capital markets, Europe and Asia, and he will run regionally debt, equity origination and syndication. He also continues to run global markets Europe. Pascucci’s former co-head, Richard Byrne, will now be head of GCM Americas.

Leading US private equity firm Darby Overseas Investments is poised to begin pre-marketing on a global emerging markets fund that will have a heavy focus on Asian investments.

The gap between the top two and their closest rivals continues to increase, according to results from our recent survey on international cash management.

Zar Amrolia has been appointed global head of foreign exchange at Deutsche Bank. His promotion is one of a number of senior-level changes at the bank. Amrolia replaces Jim Turley, who had the wider role of head of global currencies and commodities. In turn, Turley has moved to become global head of the institutional client group, replacing Brian Reid, who is taking a sabbatical after 21 years in the industry. Sources say that Reid intends to return to Deutsche in 2007. Someone familiar with Deutsche’s structure described Turley’s new role as “huge”. He will have global responsibility for the bank’s institutional investors and hedge funds.

Buzz over US continues, but Europe still getting its act together.

Islamic investment and finance company Investment Dar will increasingly look to the sukuk market to meet its funding needs, according to its chairman and managing director, Adnan Al-Musallam, because of limited opportunities for bank finance in Kuwait.

First Fiji, now the Seychelles. Suddenly, all those long hours that originators spend on planes en route to visit potential clients seem less tedious.