Investec’s structured products win six awards

INVESTEC won six awards at the second annual Africa Structured Products & Alternative Investments Conference, hosted by Structured Retail Products, an online resource for the global structured products community.

Investec won the coveted Best House in Africa award and Best Performance and Best Distributor in South Africa awards. The bank also picked up the Deal of the Year award for the first time.

The event, which took place in Johannesburg last week, recognises the best-performing structured product providers in the market, and is voted for by the industry.

Kenric Owen, the head of financial products at Investec, says: “What makes this accolade particularly satisfying is the acknowledgement from our distributors, as well as our peers. Together, we have seen the industry develop considerably over the past 12 months, to a point where structured products comprise an increasing proportion of typical asset allocations. This is largely thanks to these investments being steadily demystified through the hard work of the industry. This bodes well for all stakeholders.”

Structured products provide a pre-defined risk-and-return profile, with returns linked to one or more underlying assets or indices. Investec has launched 17 structured products in the past 12 months, eight of which are offshore and nine are randdenominated local investments.

“The peculiar global investment environment currently – where we are seeing major political shifts with little predictability of outcomes, against a backdrop of muted growth – is causing investors to seek some level of certainty in the pre-defined nature of structured products. This is specifically relevant to investors wanting their principal investment protected, as well as seeking attractive upside potential,” Owen says.