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Commerzbank Securities has made two additions to its European structuring team. Walter Womersley joins as a credit structurer from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, where he worked in credit derivatives. Also joining as a credit structurer is Mario von Kelterborn, who previously worked in global credit derivatives at Deutsche Bank.

Canary Wharf Group plc, which owns the eponymous high rise office development in London's Docklands, this week launched a £120m tap of its first securitisation. The groundbreaking £555m deal, backed by five buildings at Canary Wharf, was the largest ever securitisation of a single property when it was launched in December 1997.

Just when telecoms companies thought things could not get any worse, this week they did.

UK bank Abbey National this week announced that it has closed its first collateralised bond obligation, a $510m synthetic issue launched by sole manager Bear Stearns on the last working day of 2000. Marylebone Road CBO 1 Ltd is backed by an investment grade pool of mainly US corporate bonds and credit default swaps. Abbey plans more CDOs this year.

Almost two years after Greenwich NatWest won the mandate, mortgage bank Istituto Italiano di Credito Fondiario this week issued the largest ever Italian performing MBS, a Eu722.6m transaction called Palazzo Finance Due. RBS Financial Markets was arranger with Deutsche Bank as joint bookrunner. Unusually, the deal combined commercial loans (25%) and residential loans (75%).

Further details have emerged about the second arbitrage collateralised debt obligation from Deutsche Bank's German asset management subsidiary, DWS Group. Priced by Deutsche at the beginning of February, the Eu400m issue will initially be backed by around 61% high yield bonds, supplemented by investment grade collateral. The proportion of high yield assets is scheduled to rise to around 80% after one year. Up to 20% of the bonds can be from US issuers, but all the collateral must be in euros. Eurostar II CDO offered five tranches of notes above a Eu51m equity tranche.

The "B" tranche paper for VoiceStream Wireless traded at 99 1/2. Nextel "D" paper traded up to 99 3/4. A longstanding rumor that Wyndham International is doing a bond deal continues to rear its head, buoying a $3 million trade at 99 3/8, dealers reported. A piece of Spectrasite's credit facility traded at 100 1/2 - 3/4.

Institutional investors last week clamored in vain to buy at-the-money puts on shares of Deutsche Börse, which sold shares via an initial public offering a week ago. Cosme Osborne, equity derivatives trader at Citibank in Frankfurt, said the bank declined brokers' requests to sell puts on the stock because there is not yet a listed market on which it can hedge out the risk. Stock options are typically listed on the Eurex a month after an IPO.

Mike Koegler, v.p. derivatives marketing to financial institutions at J.P. Morgan, has taken the new position of managing director, in derivatives marketing to financial institutions at Bear Stearns in New York. Peter Croncota, senior managing director and global head of fixed income and credit derivatives marketing at Bear Stearns in New York, said "Mike is the kind of guy you hire when he's available." He added that the bank's institutional client base is steadily growing, and Koegler will ensure quality coverage. Koegler markets fixed income, credit, and equity derivatives, but historically has focused on interest-rate products. Going forward he will work with all three areas.

Banc of America Securities has hired Alan Grumet, v.p., corporate equity derivatives marketing at J.P. Morgan in New York, in the new position of principal, structured products. Trained as a lawyer, Grumet has done extensive work with tax and accounting products. The bank hired him because clients always demand new structures, said Chris Innes, managing director and global head of marketing for equity financial products in New York. "We would have hired him last year, if we could have," conceded Innes. Grumet reports to Innes and Trevor Ganshaw head of convertible capital markets.BofA Securities was attractive because of its client platform, depth of corporate relationships, and quality of talent already on the team, said Grumet.

Banc of America Securities has hired a five-strong group of proprietary risk arbitrage traders from RBC Dominion Securities in New York. The group, headed by Jeremy Frommer, director at RBC, joined BofA earlier this month, according to a spokeswoman for BofA Securities. Frommer referred calls to Van Nguyen, managing director and global head of equity derivatives trading at BofA in New York. Nguyen declined comment.