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Financial product By Rob Stock - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 03 June 2011 
Product: COMBI Series 7 How it works: Liontamer is often called a fund manager. It is more accurately, a fund creator. It specialises in what might be termed artificial funds, where the return is based on the return of an index, but the actual return is dependant on a counterparty – in this case Barclays Bank – paying a sun equal to the “investment amount plus the formula of returns”. Liontamer funds are creations of financial wizardry and do not invest in “real assets”. The formula of returns in the case of COMBI Series 7 is the return produced by an index representing the returns (equally weighted) on Brent oil, gasoline, nickel, copper, lead, palladium, sugar, corn and cotton. Liontamer funds seem to have done well, some very well, and survived the ructions in the world financial system. Investors in COMBI Series 3 saw their funds mature last month with a return of 47.67%. That makes for a group of happy investors desirous of a follow-up investment. But as the world learns, and forgets, anew, high returns are often followed by periods of collapse or stagnation. Given that, Liontamer’s specialty is capital protection, and the COMBI Series 7 offers 100% capital protection. It is a five-year product, so investors’ money will be locked-up for some time. What we like: If there’s one thing you want your money to do it is at least hold its purchasing power. That means staying ahead of the price of things like food, energy and products like cars and cellphones. As these are made of the stuff investors call commodities, it is hard to argue against people having some of their money invested in these areas. What we don’t like: Moralists might say speculating in commodity prices is part of a modern sickness that’s driven up asset prices to unsustainable levels resulting in crashes and instability. Be aware there are costs associated with Liontamer funds. Conclusion: There’s plenty of talk of a commodities price bubble which suggests capital protection may be a price worth paying. Liontamer funds are not simple, so Liontamer distributes them through financial planners and investment advisers, so there’s a cost to get in.
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