Product Launches round-up

July 2008

FTSE Group has extended its Global Equity Index Series (GEIS) to cover the Frontier markets, alongside its existing Developed and Emerging market indices. The FTSE Frontier 50 is the company’s first index to be created from an eligible universe of 23 new frontier markets. FTSE will launch further regional and country indices for frontier markets in phases throughout the remainder of 2008 and into 2009.

Société Générale subsidiary group Lyxor, in collaboration with Coast Investment & Development Company has launched a new ETF focusing on Kuwait. The Lyxor ETF Kuwait (FTSE Coast Kuwait 40) is the first of its kind to focus on the Gulf region and offers access to the Kuwait market through one single share traded on the London Stock Exchange. It carries an annual total expense ratio of 0.65 per cent.

MSCI Barra has unveiled the MSCI Global Currency Indices, which may be licensed for use for portfolio management and benchmarking purposes. The Indices may also serve as the basis of structured products and other index-linked investment vehicles such as ETFs. The Indices take the currency and interest rate returns of the developed and emerging market currencies into account, and the structure allows institutional investors to measure the total investment performance of foreign currencies within an equity portfolio tracking an MSCI equity index.

Deutsche Bank’s ETF platform, db x-trackers, has listed the first ever regional Shariah-compliant ETFs on the London Stock Exchange. The db x-trackers S&P 500 Shariah ETF, the S&P Europe 350 Shariah ETF and the S&P Japan 500 Shariah ETF are also complemented by the global Shariah-compliant ETF on Dow Jones Islamic Market Titans 100 ETF.

A Distressed Hybrid Fund of Funds has been launched by Unigestion, a privately owned asset manager with US$11bn invested in hedge funds, private equity funds and managing quantitative equity strategies. The fund is designed to take advantage of the full spectrum of investment opportunities surfacing in the wake of the credit crisis.

Standard Life Investments has launched its entire Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV fund range to the German market for investment through dwpbank. The range includes the Global REIT Focus Fund, the Global Equity Fund, the Eurozone Equity Fund and the European High Yield Bond Fund.

The JSE, in partnership with FTSE Group has launched the FTSE/JSE Shariah Top 40 Index, a selection of Shariah compliant companies from the FTSE/JSE Shariah All-Share Index. The calculation of the index and the treatment of corporate actions are similar to the FTSE/JSE Top 40.

The MSCI Agriculture and Food Chain Indices have been unveiled by MSCI Barra, forming part of the MSCI Thematic and Strategy Indices family. The new Indices are designed to measure the opportunity set represented by listed companies across the agriculture and food chain, including food distributors and producers of agricultural products, fertilizers and agricultural chemicals, and packaged foods and meats.

Deutsche Bank has launched two new db x-trackers ETFs on the CAC 40® and the CAC 40 Short indices on the Euronext Paris, the first CAC 40 based ETFs to be launched by an ETF provider from outside France. The ETFs allow investors the opportunity to gain long or short exposure to the French stock markets benchmark. The CAC 40 ETF has an all-in fee of 0.20 per cent per annum and the CAC 40 Short ETF of 0.40 per cent per annum.

The Emerging Inflation-Linked Bond fund has been launched by Sinopia, the active quant branch of HSBC Global Asset Management. HSBC believes this is the first fund on the market for European investors that is fully invested in inflation-linked bonds (ILBs) issued by emerging market economies.

The index invests in ILBs issued by nine emerging countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey. This gives a maximum weight of 25 per cent to the largest country for effective diversification.

Meteor Asset Management has launched Property Recovery Plan 2, a kick-out investment linked to the performance of the FTSE EPRA Europe Index. The Plan has a six year term and offers 10.5 per cent at the first anniversary, so long as the Index is at or above its opening level. Should it be below this level, the Plan will pay 21 per cent on the second anniversary. The plan will remain open until the Index is at or above the opening level on any anniversary date, and would therefore pay 63 per cent in year six, at maturity. Capital is at risk only in the event of the Index being below 50 per cent of its opening level at maturity, at which capital loss will be one per cent for every one per cent fall in the Index.

The first real estate fund of funds under Italian law has been unveiled by JPMorgan Asset Management. Fondo Immobiliare JPMorgan Global Real Assets is a closed-ended real estate fund restricted to professional investors, set up and managed by JPMorgan Asset Management SGR SpA. The Fund has an Internal Rate of Return of ten to 12 per cent, and a target distribution of proceeds of five per cent per year. It will invest indirectly in the traditional real estate sectors as well as in the alternative and infrastructure sectors globally.

Impax Asset Management has launched an institutional share class for the IFSL Impax Environmental Leaders Fund (IEL), an all cap fund launched in March 2008. The share class will allow institutional investors to benefit from the long-term secular growth characteristics of the environmental sector by investing in both “pure play” environmental businesses and also larger, diversified companies with leading environmental divisions.

European Pensions Management (EPM) has launched a no annual charge Funds SIPP, which will be run in conjunction with Selftrade. The EPM Funds SIPP is designed for investing in funds through a Selftrade SIPP Dealing Account, which has access to over 40 fund managers including Fidelity, Invesco Perpetual, Jupiter and New Star.

Standard Life Investments has announced that German investors will be able to gain access to the company’s entire Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV fund range via Frankfurter Fondsbank’s broker platform in Germany.
The range includes the Global REIT Focus Fund, the Global Equity Fund, the China Equity Fund, the Eurozone Equity Fund, the European Corporate Bond Fund and the European High Yield Bond Fund. Bond funds in the range include the Euro Government Bond Fund, the Euro Inflation Linked Bond Fund, the Global Bond Fund and the European Extended Duration Fund.

HSBC Global Asset Management is to open its New Frontiers fund to select institutional and high net worth investors. Launched in February 2008, and until now only available to clients of the HSBC Private Bank, the fund has launched US$300million in the first three months.

As an institutional share class, minimum investment is US$5million, and as a high net worth share class, US$1million. Over the period from launch to end May 2008, the fund outperformed the main New Frontier benchmark by delivering a return of 3.69 per cent net of fees.