for one the UK banks were made to hold on to a significant amount of the first loss tranch
made? they wanted to do it. we wanted to do it on our CDOs and did. if the structure doesn't tank the equity tranche is a goldmine - you own the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. the early ones we did paid for themselves in no time. they were EUR denominated and pan-eurozone in terms of what went into them. it doesn't matter what currency or what underlying market you are talking about.