| RMBS and CMBS remain popular |
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| Another strong month was experienced in fund and debt listings on the ISE with commercial and residential backed securities continuing to be very popular while the introduction of a new policy note by the ISE will allow for more flexibility for a fund's cash flow management. |
Davy (Eoin Mackessy)
The period under review proved to be a busy one for the Davy listing team with a large number of funds and debt products admitted to the official list.
On the funds side, we saw a number of funds with strategically focused investment policies. An interesting example of this was the SEI Islamic Investments Fund plc. The investment objective of this fund is to invest in Shariah compliant transferable securities in accordance with the UCITS regulations. The importance of this investment objective was highlighted by the fund having both a Shariah compliance adviser and committee, which ensures all investments made are in accordance with Islamic law. Portland Global Real Estate Securities Fund opted to focus on investing globally in publicly-traded real estate securities. Polar Capital also added a further fund with the listing of the Polar Capital Latin America Fund which targets the equity markets of South America, Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico.
It was once again a busy time on the domestic front with a number of existing companies adding sub-funds and additional classes to their portfolios. This high activity was evident with Alternative Advantage (AA) plc, adding two further sub-funds Allium and Summa Arbitrage to their existing structure, while Morley Liquidity Funds plc followed suit with the listing of the Cash Plus AA Fund. Mellon Global Funds and Optimal Multiselect (Ireland) plc also continue to expand their product offerings with the listing of multiple new sub-funds and classes.
On the debt side, Barclays added a further CMBS deal to its Eclipse family, listing Juno (Eclipse 2007-2) Ltd. Anglo were also busy during the period, increasing and updating its EMTN Programme. Anglo Irish Cap UK (3) LP also issued and listed Preferred Securities under a Tier 1 deal, similar to the Anglo Irish Cap UK (2) LP listing last year. Ardagh Glass Finance plc issued a E310 million bond issue in order to finance its acquisition of Rexam Plc, a glass container manufacturing business. This high yield transaction was listed on the Alternative Securities Market of the Irish Stock Exchange.
Given the pace of listings over the last few months, we expect a busy summer period ahead.
Dillon Eustace (Tara O'Callaghan & Carrie McNamara)
A number of closed ended and private equity transactions are now coming on stream. One such fund is CROWN European Buyout Opportunities II plc, a closed ended fund incorporated in Ireland. The fund focuses on investment in private equity funds and predominantly on small buyout transactions in Europe. AXA launched a new sub-fund within its alternative investment QIF, the AXA Multi-Manager Master Fund umbrella.
On the debt side, we saw the listing of a number of South African high yield transactions on the ASM. Peermont Global (Proprietary) Limited listed Senior Secured Notes and Peermont Global Holding II (Proprietary) Ltd, listed 18 per cent PIK Notes. Another South African issuer, Consol Glass (Proprietary) Ltd, listed first priority senior secured notes. The Consol group is the largest supplier of glass packaging products in South Africa and are the principal supplier to all leading beverage and food companies in South Africa including SAB Miller, Distell, Diageo, Nestl? and Tiger Brands. This deal was arranged by Citigroup and JP Morgan.
Regulated market listings on the CDO front included Pinnacle Point Funding II Ltd, arranged by Bank of America Securities, Tenorite CDO I Ltd, arranged by Barclays Capital, and Sandelman Partners CRE CDO I Ltd arranged by Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. New Star Commercial Loan Trust 2007-1 arranged by Citigroup, Wachovia and JP Morgan listed five classes of notes.
On the repack side, Series 19, 21 and 91 were listed under the Corsair multi-issuer programme arranged by JP Morgan Securities. AIG Inc also listed Series 27 & 29 under its EMTN Programme.
Goodbody Stockbrokers (Therese Redmond)
The volume of investment fund and debt security listings continued to be very strong for Goodbody Stockbrokers during the May/June period.
Some interesting funds that listed in the past month include MIR Asia (Ex-Japan) Equity Feeder Fund Limited, a Cayman feeder fund that aims to outperform the S&P/Citigroup Pan Asia x Japan x AU x NZ Index (in USDs) by 5.5 per cent per annum on a gross basis, and which is managed by MIR Singapore Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based company. Sphera Global Healthcare Fund, another Cayman feeder to list this month, is managed by Sphera Global Healthcare Management, LP, an Israeli investment manager. As the trend continues for umbrella funds to offer new sub-funds and classes of shares, we assisted CMA Multi-Hedge Ltd. in the listing of its latest sub-fund, CMA Multi-Hedge Balanced Fund.
The debt team was kept busy this month with a mix of asset backed and debt listings including Nitro International Securitisation Company 2 Plc which listed E212 milion secured amortising floating-rate notes due 2013. Morgan Stanley and Rand Merchant Bank acted as joint lead managers to the transaction. Korea First Mortgage Bank No. 7 Ltd. listed six classes of floating rate notes which are backed by US$1,294,750,000 senior floating-rate notes due 2038 issued by First Home Loan No. 7 Limited. Perpetual Trustee Company Limited, in its capacity as trustee of the Series 2007-1E REDS Trust, listed three classes of mortgage-backed floating rate notes.
On the debt side, International Securities Trading Corporation plc listed USD 9.00 per cent Cumulative Perpetual Subordinated Securities while Dresdner Bank Aktiengesellschaft updated its E4 billion credit-linked note programme. The 'Constellation' structured-credit note programme was also updated this month under which there are seven issuers.
Kinetic Partners (Killian Buckley)
Kinetic Partners acted as listing sponsor to some varied deals this month. The latest offering from New Star Asset Management listed: New Star European Opportunities Hedge Fund Limited. As the name suggests, this will focus on the European market through managing a European equity long/short portfolio investing through a fundamental stock picking process.
Continuing our aim to attract new and innovative products to ISE listing, Kinetic Partners acted for The Kazakh Compass Fund, Ltd, a Bermuda based master-feeder investing in Central Asian and Kazakh assets. This fund enjoys all the benefits of being listed on an EU exchange while also creating liquidity through a Euroclear settlement process.
Keeping its finger on the pulse of the industry, the ISE introduced yet another policy note with the welcome introduction by way of derogation request of the increase from 1 per cent to a maximum of 5 per cent of the amount of cash that is permitted to be held by a listed feeder fund without the need to appoint a custodian at that level. This will give extra flexibility to the management of a funds cash flow.
McCann Fitzgerald (Roslyn Doran & Sinead Tynan)
The period under review saw MFLS act as listing sponsor for Newsmith Asset Management LLP who listed class A Euro and class A GBP shares in their latest feeder fund. The Newsmith European Fund is a Cayman Islands exempted company, the investment objective of which is to generate high risk-adjusted returns. The fund seeks to achieve the investment objective by investing across three strategies: European risk arbitrage, event driven and long-short equities.
Another Cayman Islands fund following the master-feeder structure which was listed on the Irish Stock Exchange by MFLS this month is Impax Absolute Return Fund. The investment objective of the fund and the master fund is to achieve long-term capital growth while seeking to preserve capital in adverse circumstances, for example a sustained fall in indices of global stocks. The fund seeks to achieve the investment objective by investing globally in long and short positions in quoted equity (and equity related) securities (and their derivatives) in energy, utility, infrastructure and environmental sectors and other sectors that are or may be materially affected by environmental issues.
New series of existing classes continue to be listed on a daily basis and this period was no exception. A sample of the funds the new series that were sought for are as follows: Gruss Global Investors, Havens International Enhanced Fund, WF Asia Fund Ltd and Elgin Corporate Credit Fund.
MFLS acted as listing agent to a wide variety of debt transactions during the period under review. These transactions covered the majority of asset classes for which MFLS normally acts as listing agent and included CDOs, CMBSs SLABSs, aircraft securitisations, series issued under existing asset-backed debt and covered bond programmes and an update of an existing Euro commercial paper programme. As such, the period under review therefore provided an indicative snapshot of the types of transactions listed by MFLS in general.
NCB Stockbrokers (Margot McDonagh)
This last month has proved very busy for the listing team with 19 new debt transactions listing on the Irish Stock Exchange.
The popularity of residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities remains ever increasing with the majority of our transactions being backed by such assets. This month, we saw the listing of FirstMac Mortgage Funding Trust, a New South Wales trust for which FirstMac Fiduciary Services Pty Limited acts as trustee. This transaction listed two tranches of notes which are backed by a general pool of housing loans managed by FirstMac Limited.
The popularity and dominance of the Cayman Islands and Delaware was once again cemented as 13 of our listings were incorporated in these jurisdictions. Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. acted as lead arranger on three such transactions, namely, West Trade Funding CDO III Ltd. & West Trade Funding CDO III LLL, Fourth Street Funding, Ltd. & Fourth Street Funding, LLC and Landmark IX CDO, Ltd. & Landmark IX CDO LLC. Again the focus for these transactions was mortgage-backed and commercial-backed loans.
On the funds side of the business we saw the listing of Allianz RCM Discovery Europe Fund, a Cayman master/feeder structure managed by Allianz Global Investors, which aims to seek superior risk adjusted returns by investing through Allianz RCM Discovery Europe Master Fund, which in turn will focus on long/short equity strategies. Atlantis Investment Management (Ireland) Limited has also launched a new sub-fund under Atlantis International Umbrella Fund, named the Atlantis China Healthcare Fund.
Grant Thornton (Lara Byrnes and Nicola Bissett)
The summer period began with a flourish on the ABS side. We were delighted to act as listing agent for two GSC deals during this period, GSC European CDO IV S.A. and GSC European CDO V PLC, backed by Lehman Brothers and Citigroup respectively. Lehman Brothers also acted as initial purchaser for Gulf Stream - Sextant CLO 2007-1 which listed six tranches of notes worth $475 million at the start of June.
We also acted as listing agent for Golden Knight II CLO Ltd. which listed six tranches of notes arranged by Merrill Lynch. Another notable deal listed during the period under review was Carina CDO Ltd which listed 11 tranches of notes worth nearly $1.5 billion backed by a combination of RMBS, CMBS and other CDO Securities. This deal was arranged by Deutsche Bank.
Since our last review we have listed a number of funds on the Irish Stock Exchange. The UK based investment manager PCE Investors Limited added another fund to their portfolio, by listing the Utilities & Visibility Fund. This fund has a master/feeder structure and is domiciled in the Cayman Islands. Its investment objective is to achieve superior and consistent absolute returns through investment in securities and derivative products in the global utilities universe. We were also delighted to work with the US based investment manager K2/D&S Management Co., L.L.C in the listing of the K2 Alternative Strategies (Offshore), Ltd Fund. This fund is a multi-manager fund and is domiciled in the British Virgin Islands.
The listing of series is still very popular this month, in particular the Lansdowne European Long Only Fund Limited, Trafalgar Catalyst Fund and the Antarctica Global Equities Fund Limited listed a number of further series. |
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