Altiplano, Himalaya and Podium payoffs

Structured products have played an important role in providing income and protected solutions for investors for many decades. Three interesting product types in this category are the Altiplano, Himalaya and Podium payoffs. These product types were first used a long time ago but have barely been seen in the last few years. We examine their heritage and why they currently are out of favour.

The defining characteristic of all three is the use of multiple underlyings and payoffs that are calculated with reference to all the underlyings beyond a single basket or best-of/worst-of payment. The payoffs are income generating and generally offered in a capital protected version.

Interesting multi-asset payoffs

Examples from the www.structuredretailproducts.com database can be found across several different markets. HSBC issued an Altiplano in Ireland in 2019 which referenced the four stocks of Lockheed Martin, Broadcom, General Electric and Verizon (SRP id 21953389). Every year for the five year maturity the number of underlyings above their start level is calculated and determines the coupon paid. A full 5% coupon is paid each year if all four stocks are up, 3.5% if three are up, 1.65% if two are up and 0% if zero or one are above the start level.

The Himalaya is even more complicated. One such example was issued by Unicredit in Czech Republic (SRP id 33322283). This references ten stocks including Vodafone, McDonald, Swiss Re and Toyota. Every six months the performance of each stock measured and the best one is “frozen” at its current level and then removed. This process is repeated until the final stock remains at maturity and is then counted. The performance of each frozen stock is capped at 30% and 80% of the average of the returns (floored at zero) is paid along with full capital.

Finally in this selection, BBVA issued a Podium product in 2017 linked to Inditex, Iberdrola, Santander (SRP id 16355964). This is eight years long and each year if all three stocks are at or above its start value a coupon of 2.35% is registered. At maturity, the product pays the sum of all registered coupons plus 0.8% with full capital protection.

Capital protection

Providing capital protected income products in a low-rate environment has been a difficult task since at least the year 2000 and is one of the fundamental challenges of the entire investment industry. These product types were devised by investment banks and use a set of underlyings to engineer the possibility of target income in the case of the Altiplano and Podium and growth for the Himalaya. The Altiplano employs a set of digitals to offer up to 5%, with the likelihood towards the lower end because of the schedule of payments and the high dividend yield of Verizon in particular. The Podium is similar in idea and uses the “worst-of” stock to determine whether each coupon is paid. Requiring all three stocks to be above the start level just to receive a coupon of 2.35% is a very modest target.

Even while interest rates were very low these two ideas never really caught on and with good reason. The correlation, volatility and digital risk that the investment bank faces means that the product will never look attractive compared to other simpler options such as single underlying digitals, call spreads or even a reverse convertible with plenty of downside protection. The cliquet payoff has mostly suffered the same fate. Overly complex product payoffs have generally fallen out of favour over the last ten years driven by regulatory pressure, underwhelming performance and buyside firms better able to analyse product outcomes with their own systems or external analytics providers. The days of the investment banks having the upper hand in capabilities and expertise have gone as the rest of the distribution chain have had the opportunity to catch up. This must surely be good for the industry long term.

Competition from simpler ideas

Newer solutions to providing income in a low-rate environment have also been developed in recent years. One of these is the explosion of sophisticated index constructions, such as low volatility versions of benchmark indices. These have lower option prices which can facilitate realistic chances of above interest rate returns.

The other reason that these products have rapidly disappeared is due to the rise in interest rates. Interest rates have been climbing in the last few years and risen dramatically in the last twelve months. When the risk-free rate is 2%, buying an option to give a chance of yielding 5% has a strong case but when risk free rates are already 5%, why add all that complexity and compliance risk just to squeeze out another percent or two of potential yield?

Finally we return to the Himalaya product type. This is a lower risk growth product type and bears similarities to full averaging of underlyings through the lifetime of the investment. Full averaging is known to reduce option values and the results usually look pedestrian over this time frame. Interestingly the marketing trick of “freezing” the maximum stock value in order to “lock in the gain” is actually detrimental on balance and therefore on price values compared to the opposite strategy of freezing the minimum value every period and taking the average on that basis. This is a similar phenomenon to that seen in Autocall pricing where favourable outcomes are terminated early and poor performance persists until maturity.

In conclusion we do not expect these product types to return to popularity anytime soon for several reasons. The structured product market is made up of many different constructions and it should be remembered that every payoff type has its advantages and disadvantages. As knowledge and experience increases over time we should expect some Darwinian evolution and certain payoffs to fall by the wayside. Though dinosaurs never made a comeback it is always possible that out of favour solutions will eventually be rediscovered and tried again.