Goldman upsizes $34.09 million in Asia FX bull notes; Banc of America prices FX basket deal

By Sheri Kasprzak

New York, Sept. 28 - Two notes linked to Asian currencies or indexes led structured products new Thursday.

One of those offerings was an upsized $34.09 million issue of 0% principal-protected Asia FX bull notes priced by Goldman, Sachs & Co. on behalf of Eksportfinans ASA and those notes include the Thai baht, a currency much talked-about in light of a recent coup on Thailand.

"Well, obviously they were not only able to price these but increase, so apparently the fear is easing," said one market source when asked about the notes Thursday afternoon.

"We actually have an offering coming up in October that is linked to the baht, among others, and the sentiment seems to be rather positive. I think that's probably the case with these as well."

In addition to the baht, the basket also includes equal weights of the Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi, Korean won, Singapore dollar, Taiwan dollar, Indonesian rupiah and Malaysian ringgit. Each currency contributes 12.5% to the overall performance.

The 0% notes are due March 29, 2008 and were increased from the $24.38 million announced at pricing on Sept. 19.

The notes are 100% principal protected and the principal increases as the United States dollar declines versus the basket over the next 16 months.

Banc of America FX notes

In a similar offering, Banc of America Securities LLC negotiated $4.66 million in 0% notes on behalf of Eksportfinans ASA.

The notes are due Sept. 29, 2008 and are linked to a basket of foreign indexes that includes the Brazilian real, the Russian ruble, the Indian rupee and the Chinese renminbi.

The payout at maturity on the notes will depend upon the movement of the basket compared to the U.S. dollar.

UBS's notes

Similarly, UBS AG said it intends to price principal-protected notes linked to an Asian equity index basket.

The notes due Oct. 25, 2011 are linked to the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 index, the Korea Kospi index and the MSCI Singapore index. The FTSE/Xinhua index carries a 33.34% weight, the Kospi index a 33.33% weight and the MSCI Singapore index a 33.33% weight.

If the basket return is positive, the investors will receive par plus an additional payment of between 100% to 110% of the basket return, to be determined at pricing. If the basket return is between 0% and 20%, the investors will receive the full principal, but if the basket return is less than 20%, the investors will lose 1% of the principal for each percentage point the return is below 20%.

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