Sirius Asset Management has entered the Swedish structured products market via a partnership with domestic provider Nord Fondkommission
Swedish structured products provider Nord Fondkommission has partnered with Sirius Asset Management to expand its distribution network at a time when SRP data shows that an increasing number of providers are moving their offerings towards the private banking sector.
Sirius is an affiliated representative of Nord Fondkommission and will act as a tied agent of the firm. It will focus “exclusively on distributing structured products within the network of Nord and its own network from the institutional world," according to Staffan Becket, head of growth at Nord Fondkommission.
The Swedish structured products provider is seeking to leverage on the ”experience Sirius Asset Management brings from the institutional market”.
Håkan Dahlin, partner at Sirius, said the firm is looking forward to become a strong partner for Nord Fondkommission clients as an alternative to industry giants Garantum and Strukturinvest.
“Sirius wants to be the first choice for the Swedish broker market and specially for Nord's network and be a strong challenger for the industry leaders,” he said. "[We] have for 15+ years been working mainly with institutional clients, tiers 2 and 3. And now will we use this experience to serve the swedish brokers with strong products."
The initial focus for the new distributor in the retail market will be products that generally have lower risk than the market average.
”The experience of Sirius in the institutional market will be very beneficial for retail investors concerning risks and focus on products that not necessarily seek maximum returns but reasonable returns with a high possibility of not losing money,” Becket said.
Sirius first suite of products includes three different structured notes including a ’Räntebevis’ credit default structure linked to the Stena share, and an autocall linked to Nordic companies issued by Danske Bank as well as a booster structure linked to Swedish banks.
“Sirius´ investors generally seek coupon structures, ESG and historically capital protection,” said Beckett. ”In general, transparent, plain vanilla and relatively defensive products [with] both annual coupons and a participation factor on the underlying. Product ideas will be cultivated by Sirius, in collaboration with Swedish and international investment banks.”
Although Nord Fondkommission is “not really expanding more than Sirius being a tied agent”, SRP understands the company recently entered the Norwegian institutional/private banking market as an arranger for domestic player Kraft Finans.
The company was founded in 2013 and has issued around 100 structured products worth over US$62m since January 2014, 50 of which worth nearly US$30 million are still live on the Swedish database.
Nord Fondkommission’s CEO Charlotte Bergwall will join a panel of other market leaders at SRP’s 5th Nordic Conference next week in Stockholm where they will be discussing the effect of regulation and the innovation needed to drive industry growth. To see the Agenda and Register click here.