Alternative investment strategies marketing firm Prestige Asset Management has reached a new product structuring, marketing and distribution relationship agreement with Natixis to distribute the French bank’s structured notes.
Under the distribution deal between the two firms, Prestige will distribute Natixis’s structured notes globally through its in-house UK and international marketing, sales and distribution teams distributing bespoke "market-based” structured notes issued by Natixis Structured Issuance SA.
These products will be distributed globally by Prestige to its growing in-house distribution teams which now includes 25 active “affiliates” with an increasingly diverse investor base consisting of over 250 active investor groups and financial advisers and regular contact with several thousand others.
Prestige Asset Management founder Craig Reeves told SRP that with many bond yields at near all-time lows, and many equity markets at near multi-year highs, and with an increase in volatility likely in the coming months against a backdrop of potential rising interest rates and increasingly expensive real estate, structured notes provide investors with a “genuine potential alternative” inflation hedge in an increasingly uncertain and volatile world.
“I am delighted that we are able to announce this tie-up with such a prestigious and innovative banking group at such an interesting time both in our own eight-year operating history and when there is such a clear divergence between equities and bonds,” he added. “We have seen an increasing demand from our customers for innovative 'market-based' structured products that can take advantage of this kind of environment.”
The first set of products to be rolled out to investors following the agreement will be five-year autocallable structured notes linked to the performance of a portfolio of five blue-chip stocks including Banco Santander, GSK, AT&T, Siemens and Sanofi.
The products will be available in euros, pounds and US dollars.
Future plans
Reeves also told SRP that the firm has more than 250 live relationships within a very diverse investment base comprising retail ex-pats, private banks and asset managers as well as pension funds.
“We are in constant communications about what our clients want to invest in and the addition of structured products to our offering allows us to enhance the relationship and build strong ties with our clients,” he said. “To build an alternative asset management service you need to engage with your clients and provide education and awareness of the products you are offering.”
Reeves also said that the agreement with Natixis could be extended to other issuers at a later stage, and that the firm is also considering using structured products within existing Prestige funds.
Natixis, the financial services arm of Group BPCE, issues bespoke market-based structured notes through Natixis Structured Issuance.
Prestige’s international distribution affiliate Prestige Asset Distribution Limited (PADL), has raised more than US$775m over the past five years across a number of market-based and non-market-based investment funds and investment products.