Barclays remains top year-to-date U.S. structured products agent, issuance lags 2008

By Emma Trincal

New York, Oct. 30 - Barclays remained the top agent for U.S. structured products so far this year, according to preliminary data compiled by Prospect News.

But total issuance year-to-date lagged well behind last year with $29.17 billion in 3,447 deals for 2009 to date, just over half than the total for the first 10 months of last year, marked by the pricing of $56.86 billion in 6,000 deals.

Barclays, which bought Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008, has become the undisputed leader in 2009, month after month, according to prior monthly figures compiled by Prospect News.

Through the end of October, Barclays has brought to market $8.87 billion in 698 deals, for a 30.41% share of the market.

Last year at the same time, Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. - at that point not yet acquired by Bank of America - was the top agent with coincidentally the same volume of structured products as Barclays today: $8.87 billion, though in 226 deals.

Smaller deals

The comparison shows that even for top players, deals shrank in size this year when compared to the same period in 2008. There were only two deals exceeding $500 million in size so far this year, versus eight during the same period of time in 2008.

Three big hits

Barclays brought to market the two largest deals of the year. In Feburary, it sold $2.5 billion of 0% iPath exchange-traded notes linked to the S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return index due 8/14/2036; in July, the bank priced $1 billion of 0% iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures exchange-traded notes due Jan. 30, 2019.

The third largest deal of the year came from Bank of America with a $318 million sale of zero-coupon notes linked to the S&P 500 index due Oct. 4, 2011.

Other players

JP Morgan edged out Morgan Stanley as the second largest underwriter for all U.S. structured products this year. JP Morgan placed $5.93 billion in 665 deals, or 20.34% of total issuance. This amount is significantly less, though, than what Morgan Stanley sold a year before with $7.50 billion in 434 deals.

Regarding equity-only deals, JP Morgan this year was the lead underwriter in the U.S. with $4.13 billion of issued notes linked to stocks or equity indexes. It was a total of 492 deals for 29.35% of the market shares. The leader in this category at the same time last year was Merrill Lynch.

Merrill was third this year for overall issuance with $4.17 billion sold in 151 deals, a rank held last year by Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs has declined in the ranking so far this year, moving down to fifth place from third, while others have moved up one notch, such as UBS and Citigroup.

Favored structures

Leveraged return deals with partial downside protection and reverse convertibles are the most popular types of structures so far this year with $5.25 billion (17.98%) and $3.84 billion (13.16% of the market shares) respectively sold during the first 10 months of 2009. In comparison last year, structures offering leverage coupled with partial protection accounted for only 4% of the total.

Weak October

October was not the greatest month of the year based on preliminary data, with issuers only selling $1.99 billion in 387 deals, although these preliminary figures will increase as further new issues are reported.

In comparison, February was the most prosperous month of the year, as issuers brought to market $4.096 billion in 267 deals.

Year to date, all structured products

2008 Comparables

	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	Barclays	8.871	698	30.41%	4	5.884	998	10.32%
2	JPMorgan	5.934	665	20.34%	5	5.883	1143	10.32%
3	Merrill Lynch	4.166	151	14.29%	1	8.870	226	15.56%
4	Morgan Stanley	3.266	268	11.20%	2	7.495	434	13.15%
5	Goldman Sachs	1.752	156	6.01%	3	6.208	241	10.89%
6	UBS	1.301	219	4.46%	7	3.909	323	6.86%
7	Citigroup	1.285	69	4.40%	8	3.891	145	6.83%
8	Deutsche Bank	0.633	107	2.17%	6	4.267	197	7.49%
9	RBC	0.533	543	1.83%	15	0.535	535	0.94%
10	Wells Fargo	0.369	87	1.26%	21	0.038	4	0.07%
	Total	29.170	3447	56.995	6010
	Average size:	0.008	0.009
Year to date, all structured products, excluding interest rates
					2008 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	Barclays	8.443	646	31.65%	4	5.878	994	11.29%
2	JPMorgan	5.859	660	21.96%	5	5.538	1113	10.64%
3	Merrill Lynch	4.045	142	15.16%	1	8.515	200	16.35%
4	Morgan Stanley	2.217	217	8.31%	2	6.320	378	12.14%
5	Goldman Sachs	1.592	145	5.97%	3	6.159	234	11.83%
6	UBS	1.228	210	4.60%	7	3.836	317	7.37%
7	Citigroup	0.994	53	3.72%	8	2.898	119	5.57%
8	Deutsche Bank	0.565	97	2.12%	6	4.176	185	8.02%
9	RBC	0.454	535	1.70%	15	0.469	520	0.90%
10	Wells Fargo	0.369	87	1.26%	21	0.038	4	0.07%
	Total	26.680	3270	52.068	5718
	Average size:	0.008	0.009
Year to date, stock, equity index structured products
					2008 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	JPMorgan	4.129	492	29.35%	4	4.640	991	13.48%
2	Barclays	2.166	564	15.39%	5	2.746	834	7.98%
3	Merrill Lynch	2.416	82	17.17%	1	5.758	129	16.73%
4	Morgan Stanley	1.337	118	9.50%	2	5.181	274	15.05%
5	Goldman Sachs	1.058	98	7.52%	3	4.835	170	14.04%
6	Citigroup	0.845	37	6.01%	7	2.220	73	6.45%
7	UBS	0.688	156	4.89%	6	2.641	234	7.67%
8	Deutsche Bank	0.355	58	2.52%	14	0.430	91	1.25%
9	Wells Fargo	0.316	71	2.23%	20	0.022	3	0.06%
10	RBC	0.282	490	2.00%	15	0.391	480	1.14%
	Total	14.068	2533	34.425	4673
	Average size:	0.006	0.007
October, all structured products
					2008 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	Morgan Stanley	0.492	34	24.67%	5	0.236	19	7.77%
2	JPMorgan	0.396	60	19.88%	2	0.719	70	23.73%
3	Barclays	0.308	118	15.47%	10	0.027	16	0.89%
4	UBS	0.266	22	13.34%	9	0.045	17	1.49%
5	Goldman Sachs	0.173	18	8.68%	4	0.308	18	10.16%
6	Citigroup	0.108	6	5.43%	7	0.073	8	2.40%
7	Merrill Lynch	0.095	5	4.78%	1	0.743	37	24.51%
8	RBC	0.050	68	2.48%	11	0.016	32	0.51%
9	Wells Fargo	0.033	6	1.67%
10	Deutsche Bank	0.029	3	1.46%	3	0.695	25	22.91%
	Total	1.993	387	3.031	282
	Average size:	0.005	0.011
October, all structured products, excluding interest rates
					2008 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	JPMorgan	0.396	60	22.16%	3	0.674	67	23.04%
2	Morgan Stanley	0.371	26	20.73%	5	0.216	18	7.37%
3	Barclays	0.305	114	17.04%	10	0.026	15	0.88%
4	UBS	0.254	20	14.19%	9	0.045	17	1.54%
5	Goldman Sachs	0.129	16	7.21%	4	0.308	18	10.53%
6	Citigroup	0.108	6	6.05%	7	0.066	7	2.25%
7	Merrill Lynch	0.074	4	4.16%	1	0.743	37	25.41%
8	RBC	0.046	67	2.58%	11	0.016	32	0.53%
9	Wells Fargo	0.033	6	1.86%
10	Deutsche Bank	0.029	3	1.62%	2	0.695	25	23.75%
	Total	1.788	369	2.924	269
	Average size:	0.005	0.011
October, stock, equity index structured products
					2008 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	JPMorgan	0.330	36	26.98%	1	0.581	57	40.85%
2	Barclays	0.295	109	24.12%	10	0.021	12	1.50%
3	Morgan Stanley	0.201	14	16.44%	8	0.036	8	2.53%
4	Goldman Sachs	0.109	13	8.95%	3	0.133	10	9.34%
5	Citigroup	0.096	4	7.85%	5	0.052	4	3.63%
6	UBS	0.073	13	6.00%	7	0.041	14	2.88%
7	RBC	0.035	64	2.87%	11	0.011	29	0.77%
8	Wells Fargo	0.033	6	2.72%
9	Merrill Lynch	0.023	1	1.86%	2	0.401	14	28.20%
10	RBS	0.015	25	1.20%
	Total	1.223	302	1.421	187
	Average size:	0.004	0.008
Prospect News Structured Products Manager Rankings

Criteria

• The tables include all dollar-denominated offerings sold in the United States as public, Rule 144A or similar deals reported to Prospect News.

• Offerings are included in the time period in which they price.

• Amounts are based on the total sales price (face amount multiplied by the offering price). The full amount is credited to the lead manager. For multiple managers, the total value is divided equally among all the firms.

• Each tranche is counted as a separate deal.

• Notes are included that convert into or are linked to one or more stocks, indexes, commodities, currencies, interest rates or other assets. For interest-rate deals, callables with no further structure are excluded.

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