Wealthy Asian investors "unwilling to splurge" on owning their own European football teams "are showing their enthusiasm by helping fund the sport," according to Viren Vaghela of BLOOMBERG. Sales of football finance notes, backed by TV rights of football clubs, doubled to $11M last month from the amount issued in April, when they were opened to investors in the region, according to data from Swiss-Asia Holding Pte. The Singapore-registered firm that operates the investment said that total assets in the securities globally stand at $40M and will "likely reach" $100M in '17, after a Champions League club agreed to assign "some of its TV rights for the note last month." Prolonged low interest rates around the world are "prompting yield hunters to increasingly diversify into alternative assets over bonds and other traditional securities." Investors in the football notes "receive an annual coupon" of about 6% for "effectively lending money" to top football clubs, which need the cash flow in advance of "lucrative TV deals they sign each year." The notes "also offer insulation against market shocks as they tend not to fall in line with assets such as equities." PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates sales of liquid alternative mutual funds, an investment category that can "include receivables financing such as the football finance notes," will "surge" to about $664B by '20 from $260B at the end of '13. Swiss-Asia Investment Manager Anthony Casey said, "Uncorrelated investments are sexy to most people at the moment. If the markets are going south you can always rely on people watching the game and the lucrative television contracts behind that." The notes "are listed on the Frankfurt exchange and the minimum investment" is $125,000 (BLOOMBERG, 1/9).
