Schroder’s foray in the indexed annuity space, new hires by UBS in Latin America, and KGI’s entry in Indonesia were among the topics covered by SRP’s news desk last week.

Last week marked the launch of the SRP Wrapper Guide Americas 2024, a report that seeks to offer a comprehensive overview of wrappers used for structured investment products in the region as part of our educational initiatives.

The guide will be presented at the SRP Americas Conference in New Orleans on 11 September

The guide will be presented at the SRP Americas Conference in New Orleans on 11 September. It first examines market trends by analysing the issuance or sales volume by wrapper from 2019 to the first half of 2024 based on SRP data.

It then explains how each wrapper works and includes the latest news as well as comments from leading industry players, including Citigroup, RBC Capital Markets, NewEdge Wealth, Equitable, Desjardins, Monex, BBVA and Santander.

In terms of market development, Schroders made the headlines by bringing its index designed for the US fixed index annuity (FIA) market via a partnership with American Life Securities & Co, a fully-owned subsidiary of Midwest Holdings.

With an 8.0% annualised volatility target, the Schroders Global Compass Index (SCHRGCI) follows a rules-based approach to allocate across global equities, government bonds and energy commodities.

Our Canada Market Review, Q2 2024 is also fresh out of the oven, identifying robust deal-making activities across all major issuers in the Canadian structured note space. The top player Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has added new structures with single stocks - Palantir Technologies, Novo Nordisk A/S and Adobe as it continues to capitalise on its distribution partnership with iA Private Wealth.

In Latin America, UBS made three senior appointments in its investment bank covering institutional clients. They’re Anderson Brito, head of global banking for Brazil, Marcelo Okura and Diogo Lima, co-heads of global markets for Latin America.

In the US, the Swiss bank will welcome Michael Camacho on 16 September. Camacho is set to become the US head of global wealth management (GWM) after 33 years at J.P. Morgan. He will report to Iqbal Khan and Rob Karofsky, co-heads of GWM.

UBS posted strong equity derivative revenues for the second quarter of the year while its sales of US registered structured notes edged down 1.4% from the prior quarter, which was in line with the market.

In Europe, open interest for structured products in reached a record high in July. The outstanding volumes sold to retail investors reached €15.5 billion (US$17.1 billion) in July, up €33.7m or 0.3% compared to June, and an all-time high, according to the Austrian certificate association (Zertifikate Forum Austria or ZFA).

Leonteq Securities and Saxo Bank have struck a new co-operation, under which, the Danish bank will become a sponsor under a standardised white-labelling issuance model established by Leonteq and be responsible for its distribution of guaranteed structured products.

In addition, SRP reviewed the issuance figures and H1 2024 earnings of two of the largest structured product providers in central and eastern Europe - Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) and Erste Group Bank.

Meanwhile, Indonesia’s nascent listed structured product segment has attracted a new issuer - KGI Sekuritas Indonesia (KGI Indonesia). The Taiwanese securities house has listed two call warrants on the Indonesia Stock Exchange, which track common stocks of Telkom and Bank Central Asia, respectively.

Also in Asia Pacific, the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) has launched the Nifty500 Multicap Momentum Quality 50 index which is designed to track the performance of large, mid, and small-cap stocks that exhibit both momentum and quality characteristics.

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