The Lebanese Bank of Beirut recently announced that its Commodities Guarantee 3 yrs product, launched in June 2006, delivered an overall annualised return of 4.18% earlier this month.
The return was helped by annual coupons of 8% and 9% in the first and second years of investment, respectively, which benefited from the strong rise in commodity prices between mid 2006 and mid 2008. This strong performance was offset by the recent fall in the basket of energy and metal commodities, leading to the minimum capital return of 95% being delivered at maturity.
The bank currently has two other live products, both launched in 2007: Look Back World Indices and AgriMet, maturing in early 2010 and late 2009, respectively.