Axa
A race to the finish
The Basel Committee's third consultative paper contained few surprises. Regulators are nowfocusing on implementation, despite banks' major concerns about the treatment of riskmitigation techniques.
AXA Investment Managers hires CDO head
AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) has appointed Laurent Gueunier as head of investment-grade collateralised debt obligations (CDOs).
Terror threats push up European credit default spreads
Credit default swap spreads for European corporates started to widen during the later part of this week. Fears of a terrorist attack in London or elsewhere, coupled with generally weak equity markets, started to reduce confidence in the market, traders…
FSA decision prompts tightening for insurers' credit spreads
The cost of protection for the European insurance sector has tightened by up to 15bp in trading this week following a decision by UK regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), to ease regulatory solvency requirements for individual life assurers.
FSA decision prompts tightening for insurers’ credit spreads
The cost of protection for the European insurance sector has tightened by up to 15bp in trading this week following a decision by UK regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), to ease regulatory solvency requirements for individual life assurers.
HVB protection surges on downgrade
The cost of senior credit protection for the five-year debt of Germany's HypoVereinsbank (HVB) has surged nearly 30 basis points this week following a two-notch downgrade of its unsecured deposit and debt rating by Moody’s late on Wednesday.
Morgan Stanley and Axa sued over CBO management
Jersey-registered collateralised bond obligation (CBO) investor Beaford is suing US investment bank Morgan Stanley and French insurer Axa, along with a number of its subsidiaries, for failing to properly manage three CBOs between 1996 and 2002. Morgan…
Ethical ETF launches on Borsa Italiana
A new euro-denominated ethical index exchange-traded fund (ETF) started trading on the Borsa Italiana – the Italian stock exchange – today. The Ethical Index Euro ETF (ticker B1ET IM) is the first ethical ETF in Italy.
Traders see interest in short-dated protection for insurers
Credit derivatives traders said interest in short-dated protection on European insurers was active this week. But the cost of protection in the normally more liquid five-year credit default swap markets for European financial institutions remained…
HVB downgrade forces spreads wider
The cost of five-year senior protection for HypoVereinsbank (HVB) widened by more than 10 basis points to 95/115bp yesterday after rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the German bank. The downgrade, along with another negative report on bank risk…
Top investors in credit
This year has been an eye-opener for investors in European credit, with some fund managers living dangerously by under-investing in credit expertise