DUBLIN-BASED investment firm Fearon Duggan Capital Partners is seeking to raise €10 million for a bond product linked to emerging stock markets and the futures market for food and other "soft" commodities.
The company, co-owned by investment advisers Alan Fearon and Niall Duggan, is targeting its Food Frontiers product at experienced private investors who want alternatives to property and the established equity markets.
The bond is 90 per cent principal-protected over the six-year investment term, the company said. To achieve that, some 70 per cent of the money raised will go on deposit with IIB Bank. More than 23 per cent of the money raised will trade on the markets. Some 6.4 per cent goes on fees.
Half of the traded investment will track a composite index of futures markets developed by Diapason Commodities Management and BNP Paribas. Known as the DCI Agricultural BNP Paribas Enhanced ER Index, this index tracks the markets for grain, livestock, coffee, sugar, timber and other commodities.
The other half will comprise investments in the BRIC emerging equity markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China, the "next 11" emerging markets, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan and others and stock markets in east and central Europe.
"Our research has indicated that we are at the early stages of what could turn out to be a typically lengthy upward cycle in soft commodities/food prices," said Mr Fearon, an accountant who formerly worked for AIB, Ark Life and Liberty Asset Management.
Fearon Duggan Capital Partners is lead distributor of the bond. The producer is Duggan Asset Management, a separate company established by Mr Duggan. He formerly worked for Ulster Bank Private Clients and BDO Simpson Xavier.
