UK structured products provider Mariana Capital has joined the UK Structured Products Association (UKSPA).
Zak De Mariveles, chairman of the UKSPA said that with the addition of Mariana the UKSPA further strengthens its ability to provide information and education to the wider community on behalf of the industry.
"2015 is set to be an exciting year for the UKSPA, with a number of projects planned to help meet our objectives of providing support and education to the wider investment community," he said. "We are delighted that Mariana capital will be involved in these projects and working alongside our existing members."
Elton James, chief executive at Mariana Capital Markets said that Mariana is firm believer that structured products have a very important role in many investors' portfolios. "We are delighted to join the UKSPA and look forward to contributing to and influencing its objectives," he said.
London-based financial services firm Mariana Capital Markets was established in September 2009 by Daniel Hawkins and Elton James, two former colleagues at Lehman Brothers who saw an opportunity to provide boutique financial services in the post-2008 world.
Three years later, they launched a distribution arm to offer Mariana products and services to a wider audience which included the creation of a structured investment product development and distribution business headed by former Merchant Capital managers, John Gracey and Tony King.
In July, 2014, Mariana acquired the structured products business of Gilliat Financial Solutions (GFS), a subsidiary of Arbuthnot Latham & Co. following the decision of senior GFS executives Steven Graham, Andrew Savill and Zane Tibble to join Mariana Capital.
As a result of the agreement, GFS ceased to provide new structured products, and all GFS live structured products are now supported by GFS and Mariana Capital. GFS continues to act as plan manager for the historical book of existing GFS products until maturity between 2014 and 2021; and all existing GFS products will continue to be supported by GFS which in turn will be supported by Mariana Capital and the third-party service companies that have been working with GFS in recent years.
Since then, Mariana Capital has separately developed and provided its own new structured products to GFS's clients.
SRP data shows that since its launch in the UK, Mariana has launched 18 structured products in the retail market. GFS which was launched in 2009 had marketed over 200 structured products of which 189 products are being managed under the agreement between Mariana and Arbuthnot.
Mariana has two products open for subscription including the FTSE 3 Dual Option Kick Out Plan 3, a six-year growth auto-callable plan linked to a basket of UK shares (Barclays Plc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Vodafone) hedged by Morgan Stanley, and the FTSE Callable Income Plan 2, another six-year growth product linked to the FTSE100 issued by Société Générale.
The total membership of the UKSPA includes now 13 firms representing some of the largest providers and distributors of structured products to UK retail investors such as Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Investec, Lloyds Banking Group, Mariana Capital, Meteor, Morgan Stanley, RBC Capital Markets, Reyker, Société Générale and Walker Crips.
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