Absolute Capital has raised $NZ50 million from New Zealand retail investors for credit-backed notes guaranteeing a 9.25 per cent coupon with full principal protection, and will attempt to repeat the feat in Australia.

Absolute head of business development, Paul Harding-Davis, said the so-called Packaged Income Notes (PINs) were made more palatable to New Zealand stockbrokers by the fact the manager did not receive any performance fee until the seven year term of the notes had expired, and investors had received a bonus coupon of up to 18.5 per cent. “;They know we’re going to keep going back to see them,”; Harding-Davis said. The PINs are similarly structured to the institutionally-focussed Wollemi Credit Opportunities Fund launched by Absolute last year, which has an underlying pool of 10 to 15 managers of credit and securitised loan pools. Absolute’s total funds under management are now $425 million, with recent mandates including three from Japanese pension funds for the Wollemi fund, and a $1 million placement to Absolute’s Yield Strategies Fund from Saltbush Capital’s hedge fund-of-funds.