What is an Income Note?
An income note is a subset of a broader category of structured notes. They have historically been used by ultra-high net-worth individuals and family offices, but through Carrick they are now accessible to a wider audience.
In short, an income note is a promise issued by a large international bank to make regular payments as long as certain conditions are met.
Our income notes are linked to developed market indices where regular coupons are paid if the individual reference indices have not dropped by more than a certain percentage.
An income note could be linked to the US, UK, European and Japanese stock markets. Provided that no index has dropped by more than 40%, the coupon is paid.
Income notes have significant downside protection built in, but capital can be lost if on maturity, any underlying index drops below a certain percentage. The majority of our notes have a capital barrier of 60%. This means a loss of capital if any index has dropped by more than 40% at maturity.
Capital can also be lost if the issuer goes bankrupt. Carrick mitigates this risk by using only large, highly rated international banks with credit ratings of A or higher.
Income notes are generally five- to six-year investments. There is a secondary market for them should you wish to sell out of note.
