IN the absence of a Celtic Tiger tracker bond (the volume of shares does not justify one) investors interested in tracking the fortunes of other developing economies may be interested in Canada Life's second Asian Tiger Bond.
Investors need a minimum of £5,000 to put into this bond which tracks the performance of the Asian 5 index, comprised of five south-east Asian markets - Hong Kong (33 per cent), Singapore (30 per cent), Malaysia (25 per cent), Thailand (7 per cent) and Indonesia (5 per cent). The index represents the top 15 companies with six in each of the markets, or a total of 75 companies.
Canada Life is confident in the future growth potential of these markets with real growth of between 7-8 per cent over the past 20 years. When compared to the gross building deposit rate of 22 per cent between January 1992 and 1997 the FTA Pacific Ex Japan Index at 110 per cent has performed very well, says Canada Life. This bond closes on July 18 with bonus allocations of 0.5 per cent for investments received prior to June 20th and 0.25 per cent on or before July 5th.
