Structured Products Awards 2007

The derivatives industry has had a tough time lately, what with rogue traders in Paris and subprime mortgage borrowers in California, but 2007 was nevertheless a bumper year for many of Asia's structured products teams.

In recognition of the growing importance of this business, FinanceAsia is happy to introduce its first annual Structured Products Awards. The awards are broken down into product and house categories, with an emphasis on recognising banks that have helped to develop the market in Asia.

No two banks agree on what a structured product is so we have adopted a broad definition when considering the best house awards û and our winning products include structures sold to institutions, corporates and retail investors, or even across classes.

We will present the awards to the winning teams at a cocktail reception in Hong Kong's M1NT bar on February 28 and the full write-ups for each of the award categories will be published in the March issue of FinanceAsia magazine.

HOUSE AWARDS

Best Equity House
UBS

Best Fixed Income House (Credit and interest rates)
JPMorgan

Best Fund-linked House
Credit Suisse

Best FX and Commodities House
Barclays Capital

PRODUCT AWARDS

Best Equity Structured Product
QDII A-Share/H-Share Convergence Target Redemption Note
Deutsche Bank
A play on the convergence of the A-share and H-share markets, this was one of the first structured products to give mainland Chinese investors exposure to Hong Kong stocks.

Best Interest-Rate Structured Product
IPO Price-Linked Swap
Citi
An interest-rate swap linked to the success of a company's IPO, providing a perfect hedge against any debt funding the company needed if the offer didn't launch at the top of the range.

Best Fund-linked Structured Product
Sharpe Notes
Societe Generale
A three-year note that provides returns linked to the Sharpe ratio of the underlying Lyxor/Belstar Bellatrix Master Fund û a first-of-its-kind product for Asian investors.

Best FX and Commodities Structured Product
Dragon Swap
BNP Paribas
Originally launched in Hong Kong, the Dragon Swap allowed investors to bet that Hong Kong's dollar peg would not be sacrificed, at a time when the market was pricing in a significant chance of this happening.

Best Structured Credit Product
GAON
JPMorgan
A ground-breaking won-denominated credit-linked note that brought JPMorganÆs risk-management expertise to local investors in Korea.