Asset Classes

Inter-dealer brokerage firms GFI Group and ICAP have joined forces with The Clearing Corporation of Chicago to develop clearing services for over-the-counter (OTC) derivative instruments, including credit and interest rate derivatives.

OTC derivative valuations vendor SuperDerivatives says that Grant Thornton Greece has licensed a comprehensive set of its tools, including all of its option pricing and analytics platforms. It will serve as the basis for the firm's audit work surrounding IAS39, IFRS 7and UCITS III and in preparation for the MiFID regulations.

Interwoven, the owner of the Scrittura messaging technology that enables buy and sell-side clients to communicate details of OTC derivative transactions without manual processing, says its clients will now be among the first to have access to the full range of post-trade processing services provided by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) through the Deriv/SERV Trade Information Warehouse the American CSD unveiled last month.

World initial public offering (IPO) activity hit a record high in 2006 with $227 billion raised on 1,559 offerings between January and November, up $167 billion on all of 2005, according to a study by Ernst & Young. The centre for IPO activity was the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with 17 per cent of all IPOs, followed by

With hedge funds generating a growing share of trading volumes in many fixed-income products - and a majority of the volume in several especially lucrative products - global and European investment banks are concentrating their efforts on these increasingly profitable customers. Or so suggests a new study of fixed in

Marketpipe Limited, which operates a new issue network in the fixed income markets and also licenses its products to banks, has been sold to Ipreo LLC. Marketpipe was formed in 2000 and currently has 19 investment banking clients serviced by 30 employees from its London office. With the acquisition of Marketpipe, Ip

The Spanish Financial Futures and Options Exchange, MEFF, says Deutsche Bank Madrid has joined the exchange as a direct clearing member, and Fortis Bank Madrid has joined as a custodian clearing member. Liquid Capital Securities and Nomura International, both of which are based in London, have joined as trading member

Quantifi, a provider of analytics and risk management solutions to the global credit markets, has released Quantifi Version 8.5, a toolkit for the pricing and risk assessment of credit derivatives. "Version 8.5 provides several key enhancements including third-generation base correlation technology essential for pricing some of the more recently developed portfolio credit products," says Rohan Douglas, CEO, Quantifi.

Eurex, the international derivatives exchange, will launch the world's first exchange-traded credit derivatives contract on 27 March 2007, a future based on the iTraxx

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has appointed CLS Bank International (CLS) to provide central settlement of payments for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives contracts housed in the Trade Information Warehouse it launched earlier this week. The aim is to provide an integrated global payment processin