JPMorgan continues to place products for competitors; Goldman to sell $5.4 million offering for Svensk

By Kenneth Lim

Boston, Jan. 12 - JPMorgan Securities Inc. continues to be an active placement agent for rival banks, with two index-linked offerings announced Friday.

Elsewhere Goldman, Sachs & Co. is selling $5.4 million of notes linked to the Goldman Sachs Commodity index for AB Svensk Exportkredit.

JPMorgan to sell for rivals

JPMorgan Securities plans to arrange an offering of zero-coupon buffered return enhanced notes due June 24, 2008 linked to the S&P 500 index for Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., according to a free-writing prospectus.

The payout at maturity will be par plus double any positive return on the index up to a maximum of 14.4%. The payout is par if index level ends lower by no more than 10%, but holders will lose 1.1111% for each 1% that the index declines beyond 10%.

JPMorgan Securities will also be the placement agent for Barclays Bank plc's 0% buffered return enhanced notes due Jan. 31, 2008, that is linked to the Russell 2000 index.

The payout at maturity for the Barclays issue will be par plus triple any positive return on the index, capped at 20.73%. Investors will share in any loss in the index level. The return on the index will be calculated as the average of the index level on the five trading days before maturity.

JPMorgan has been an active placement agent for offerings issued by other banks. In the past three months, it has helped Morgan Stanley price at least two structured offerings. The latest was an offering of three-year annual review notes linked to the S&P 500 index.

JPMorgan's fee is about 1.5% for the Merrill Lynch offering, and not more than 1% for the Barclays offering.

JPMorgan declined to comment on the offerings.

Goldman to sell for Svensk

Goldman Sachs is selling $5.4 million of floating-rate notes due Jan. 18, 2008 linked to the performance of the Goldman Sachs Commodity index for Svensk, the Swedish Export Credit Corp.

Goldman is initially purchasing the notes from Svensk at 99.75% of the principal.

The interest of the notes will be three-month Libor minus 27 basis points.

At maturity, the notes will pay par multiplied by a leverage factor of three times the percentage increase or decrease in the index, adjusted to reflect the cost of providing the commodity-linked return on the notes.

The notes will be redeemed earlier if the index settles at or below 88% of the initial index level, in which case investors will receive significantly less than the principal and possibly zero. Investors may put the notes at any time.

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