Retail deal of the year

Navigating tightly-knit legislation on investments and ending up with a structured product available for retail but based on the independent thoughts of its own analysts is quite a trick. With help from its friends, Raymond James pulled it off, selling a whopping $128 million of products in the first tranche, with the second tranche ratcheting proceeds up to and around $200 million

Eric Yates, Raymond James

Creating a dynamic index methodology with rebalancing that includes a weighting allowance for less liquid stocks, but which does not qualify as giving investment advice, is as difficult as it sounds, which goes some way to explaining why it took around 18 months to create the first version of the Equity Notes Linked to the Raymond James' Analysts Current Favorites Total Return Index - a deal that will be repeated every six months.

Eric Yates, vice-president, corporate and executive services at