Spotlight on… top issuers in Finland (FY2022) Spotlight on… single stocks in France (Q4 2022)

Local cooperative banking group OP kept the competition at bay as it remained the number one issuer for the fourth year in a row.

After disappointing sales for much of the year, the Finnish structured products market ended 2022 on a high.

Driven by a sharp rise in volumes for interest-linked products in the final quarter, sales reached €1.2 billion (from 405 products) at the end of December – up 24% year-on-year (YoY). It was the highest sales figure since 2015 when €1.3 billion was collected from 500 products, according to SRP data.

Average volumes, at €3.1m, were also up compared to 2021 when products sold on average €2.6m.

Fourteen issuer groups were active during the year (2021: 17). They were a mixture of Nordic institutions, European and US investment banks.

Finnish cooperative banking group OP was the number one issuer for the fourth consecutive year. It held a 60% share of the market – up 33 percentage points YoY. It collected €740m from 93 products, an increase of 175% by sales volume compared to 2021 when it gathered €270m from 57 products.

OP’s offering included OP Säästöobligaatio Korkoputki 1 v XXV/2022, a one-year capital-protected note linked to the six-month Euribor, which, with sales of €124m, became the best-selling Finnish product of all time. The products were distributed via the

Structures linked to companies from the banking-, auto-manufacturers- and luxury goods sectors were in demand during Q4.

Finland: top issuer groups by market share*

France: single stocks and single stock indices - market share by sales volumes* network of Pohjola Pankki. In second, Nordea achieved a market share of 13% from 101 products worth an estimated €160m (2021: €185m from 93 products). A large chunk of the bank’s volumes came from credit-linked notes (CLNs).

BNP Paribas was the third most active provider. The French investment bank captured seven percent of the market (2021: 8%) from selling 71 products worth approximately €90m. BNP was also strong on credit, issuing 36 CLNs, while a further 30 products were linked to a single equity index, of which the Solactive Europe & US Top Pharmaceuticals 2020 AR 5% Index was the most often used (nine products).

Goldman issued 32 products worth €60m, enough to claim a five percent share of the Finnish market. Its products were all equity-linked and exclusively distributed via Alexandria Markets.

Danske Bank completed the top five with a four percent market share. The bank sold 36 products, mostly linked to equities, that were worth €55m. Other issuers active in the year included Morgan Stanley, UBS, Evli, Credit Suisse, Barclays and Société Générale, among others.

Products linked to single names collected an estimated €380m – representing approximately six percent of the notional traded in the fourth quarter of 2022 in France. Market share remained sequentially flat from the previous quarter and was down 42% year-on-year. The gap has been filled in by single-name indexes with assumed dividend, which continued to gain visibility throughout 2022.

Stock-picking based on fundamental research and the lookout for opportunities from stocks, which have not fully recovered post-pandemic, has been a preferred approach for many investors to address the geopolitical uncertainty in Europe and on a macro level.

Shares from the banking sector, including those of Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and BNP Paribas, were the preferred underlyings of the French investor in the quarter, with estimated sales of €90m – equal to 24% of the total single-stock universe. One of the best-selling products was a note on the share of Crédit Agricole, which was issued on the paper of Morgan Stanley International and collected €8.4m during the subscription period.

The auto-manufacturers sector captured 18% of the single-stock market, boosted by Stellantis, which was the most popular share in Q4 2022 after losing more than 25% of its value in 2022.

Structures tied to the share of Stellantis gathered approximately €38m – 10% of the single stock-linked universe in the quarter. Two-thirds of the volumes came from products that struck in December, with Morgan Stanley, Citi, Credit Suisse and Société Générale among the issuers. Additionally, five products, issued by Citi, were linked to iStoxx Single Stock on Stellantis GR Decrement 1 – an index with assumed dividend.

The share of Mercedes-Benz was also trending with five products linked the stock and two products linked to an index: iStoxx Single Stock on MercedesBenz Group GR Decrement 3.8 Price EUR and Solactive Mercedes-Benz AR 5 Index, both with assumed dividend.

Sales of products linked to companies from the luxury goods sector (nine percent market share) have been boosted by the possible rebound of Chinese consumer demand in 2023, which is expected to favour the luxury industry.

The stock of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) was top luxury pick, while Veolia Environnement, a French company active in water management, waste management and energy services, translated a positive bet on the recessionresilient utilities sector (eight percent market share).

Other popular shares in the quarter included Orange (communication services), Total Energies (energy) and Klépierre (real estate).