Bloomberg News
NEW YORK - Chase Manhattan Bank Corp. said it has hired Adrian Hyde and Richard Kennaugh as managing directors and co-heads of credit derivatives trading to boost its presence in that market.
Mr. Hyde was head of credit derivatives trading at J.P. Morgan & Co., a leader in the business. Mr. Kennaugh headed credit derivatives trading at Credit Suisse First Boston Inc., Chase said.
The roughly $1 trillion market in credit derivatives - contracts derived from company and sovereign debt and designed to hedge against credit risk - has doubled or tripled in each of the past three years.
"There's been a lot of growth in the market in general," said Frank Ronan, head of Chase's structured credit group. "We want to be a player."
The fastest-growing type of credit derivative is the so-called single-name default swap, a contract linked to default risk.
Buyers of protection against default make periodic payments to sellers of protection in exchange for a lump sum to be paid if a particular company or country defaults on debt. Traders said that with its large balance sheet of loans, Chase could quickly expand in credit derivatives.
