Barclays Bank will start next week with an estimated £10m to rollover, following the maturity of its FTSE Super Tracker - March 2009 Edition (3yr) on Tuesday. The product is one of the top performers this year, after returning 150% of initial capital after three years.
The product promised to pay a participation of 400% on any rise in the FTSE100 index, subject to a maximum return of 150% of investors' original capital. The underlying level on its strike date was at 4,416.23 points, and the final index level after averaging over the last month of the term stood at 5,502.21 - a growth of around 24.6%. The actual return of the product was 198.36% of initial capital but the maturity payment was set at 160% due to the cap on the upside.
"Despite the choppy backdrop, this investment paid capital plus 50%, set against a FTSE performance of +22.1%, a FTSE Total Return performance of +35.7% and UK RPI inflation of +14.7%," said Richard Henry, director, investor solutions at Barclays. "While it didn't change the return on the product, the averaging feature also improved the measured index performance from 22.1% to 24.6%, a good illustration of how averaging can help in the case of a sudden sell-off such as we have seen in recent weeks."
A five-year version of the product with the same participation rate on the underlying but with a 200% cap is still live.