As if structured products weren’t suffering enough bad press already this week, a story appeared in the Financial Times this morning firing another bullet at our embattled quarry. The article, ‘Clouds gathering around Blue Sky structured product’ alerts readers that a product launched by Blue Sky Asset Management (BSAM), The Accelerated Recovery Plan, which is linked to five UK banking stocks, is close to breaching its 50% soft protection barrier following the plummet taken by HBOS equity. The plan was launched in April, with BSAM trumpeting that the “RBS rights issue and central bank action signal beginning of the end for bank crisis”.

The Minibond debacle engulfing both the Hong Kong and Singapore structured products industries has provoked a flurry of blogging activity from the Asian region. Blog subjects have ranged from outright attacks on product issuers, distributors and regulators condemning the selling of the financial instruments to retail investors. Other blogs have taken aim at regional publications which have posited that the blame should not rest on product providers’ and distributors’ shoulders alone but with investors too. The ‘unbiased’ blogging blame game certainly has no shortage of villains.