Structured products market gets boost through M&A

CONTRARIAN INVESTOR

I have waxed lyrical many times about the pratfalls and limitations of the retail structured products space.

Although I think it is also fair to say sensible products, intelligently designed, can be incredibly useful for long-term investment planning. The key problem, in my view, has been a competitive one – there is a bunch of major investment bank-based providers such as Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Investec who have built up very slick, successful operations aimed at wealthier investors with mass-market IFAs as a bit of an afterthought. This is not to say the likes of Barclays will not provide a good product for smart IFAs such Ian Lowes up in Newcastle but, in my experience, the best ideas ...