NEW YORK, June 24, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, LVA Indices (LVA), the leading fixed income index and pricing provider in Chile, and Proveedor Integral de Precios (PIP), a leading index and pricing provider in Latin America, today announced that they have signed a joint marketing agreement to help raise the profile and contribute to the transparency of the region's growing fixed-income market. Under the agreement, the parties will calculate, market and license the Dow Jones LATixx Indexes, also launching today. The new indexes measure corporate and government bonds in major Latin American countries.
The first 10 indexes in the Dow Jones LATixx Index series represent the bond markets in Mexico and Chile. The five Dow Jones LATixx Indexes for Mexico have been licensed by Barclays Global Investors (BGI) to serve as the basis for exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The ETFs are expected to be available in July.
This is the parties' first step to establishing the Dow Jones LATixx Indexes as the region's prime fixed-income index family. The partners expect to expand their initiative to include additional fixed-income indexes for markets such as Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Argentina.
"The bond market is the primary and most actively used investment vehicle in Latin America. Dow Jones Indexes has teamed up with LVA and PiP, two of the continent's leading fixed-income experts, to create an index family that provides market participants with diversified exposure to this growing and exciting asset class. Furthermore, the Dow Jones LATixx Indexes can serve as the basis of passive financial products, such as the ETFs being launched by BGI," said Michael A. Petronella, president, Dow Jones Indexes.
"Not only will we produce indexes that can be replicated in financial products, we also aim to create full families of indexes for each country, covering the entire range of instruments issued in their local fixed income markets. These broad market indexes will open up new possibilities for market participants, allowing the application of global best practices in measuring and analyzing portfolio risk and performance. Building such benchmarks for local fixed income investments has the added benefit of greater transparency and makes the market more attractive for foreign investors," said Gregorio Gonzalez, CEO, LVA Indices.
"When we started to think about and discuss this partnership, we always saw the added value that the three of us together would bring to the LATAM region: experience, reputation, specialization, and commitment. In a few words I would say that our business culture is aligned. I am convinced that this will be a successful project and we will be moving beyond the expectations and needs of our clients. There is more to come, for sure.," said Gerardo Luengas, chief executive officer, PiP
The five indexes for the Mexican fixed-income market measure the performance of specific types of government-issued bonds. The five new indexes for the Chilean fixed-income market include both government and corporate bonds.
The Dow Jones LATixx Indexes are reviewed on a monthly basis and daily back-tested historical data is available back to December 31, 2004(1) for the Mexican indexes, and back to January 1, 2001(1) for the Chilean indexes. Further information can be found on the Dow Jones LATixx Indexes Web site at www.latixx.com.
(1) The Dow Jones LATixx Mexico Government UMS Index was first published on June 8, 2009, the remaining Dow Jones LATixx Indexes were first published on June 3rd, 2009. All estimated daily historical closing prices prior to that date are based on back-testing (i.e., calculations of how the index might have performed in the past if it had existed). Backtested performance information is purely hypothetical and is solely for informational purposes. Backtested performance does not represent actual performance, and past performance is not indicative of future results.
About Dow Jones Indexes
A full-service index provider, Dow Jones Indexes develops, maintains and licenses indexes for use as benchmarks and as the basis of investment products. Best known for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Indexes also is co-owner of the Dow Jones STOXX indexes, the world's leading pan-European indexes that are an integrated segment of the Dow Jones Global Index series. Additionally, Dow Jones Indexes maintains its benchmark index series, the Dow Jones Total Stock Market Indexes, which is anchored by the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index and covers more than 12,000 securities in 65 markets. Beyond equity indexes, Dow Jones Indexes maintains a number of alternative indexes, including measures of the hedge fund and commodity markets. Dow Jones indexes are maintained according to clear, unbiased and systematic methodologies that are fully integrated within index families. www.djindexes.com
Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (Nasdaq:NWS) (Nasdaq:NWSA) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV) (www.newscorp.com). Dow Jones is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones owns 50% of SmartMoney and 33% of STOXX Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.
About LVA Indices
LVA Indices is a company that specializes in local Latin American fixed income, with offices in Chile (headquarters) and Peru. Initially created as a full-service index provider, LVA has extended its product offering to fair value pricing for local fixed income securities and derivatives, mutual fund performance measurement, consulting and custom financial software solutions. The LVA Chile Fixed Income indexes include over 250 indexes covering the full range of local instruments issued in Chile, and have become the undisputed standard in this market. LVA's pricing service uses proprietary models and market data to value over 50,000 local instruments on a daily basis, and is used by major local and international financial groups to price their local portfolios. LVA Indices has provided consulting to major institutional, governmental and supra-national institutions in Chile and the rest of the region, and several names in the local financial industry rely on software developed by LVA to control their investment policies and risk levels. www.lvaindices.com
LVA Indices is an independent company jointly owned by LarrainVial (www.larrainvial.com) and Buena Vista Capital (www.buenavistacapital.com).
About PiP
PiP was the first price provider authorized in Mexico. It counts with nine years of experience serving to institutional clients in Mexico and in other countries like USA, Chile, Spain, Netherlands, among others. Current clients base include mutual funds, pension funds, brokers-dealers, banks, insurance companies, market makers, etc with a mix of local and international players. PiP has offices in Mexico (headquarters), Costa Rica and Peru with 60%, 100% and 100% (refers to mutual funds market in Peru) of market share respectively. As price provider PiP has a widely experience in the valuation of illiquid assets as well as in OTC derivatives and structure instruments. Currently PiP valuates over 25,000 instruments daily in Mexico using proprietary models. PiP also was the pioneer in fixed income benchmarks in Mexico. Currently PiP produces 126 fixed income benchmarks. www.precios.com.mx
Dow Jones LATixx Index Overview
Measures the performance of the entire
Dow Jones LATixx Chile Chilean local fixed-income market,
Fixed Income Index including Government Bonds, Corporate and
Bank Bonds, Asset-Backed Securities and
Letras Hipotecarias. The index is market-
cap weighted.
Measures the performance of the Chilean
Dow Jones LATixx Chile Government's local issues in Chilean
Government Bond Index Pesos, U.S. Dollars (note: U.S. Dollars
included as part of historical data only)
and inflation-adjusted Unidades de Fomento
(UF). The index is market-cap weighted.
Measures the performance of all local
Dow Jones LATixx Chile investment-grade corporate issues,
Corporate Bond Index including bank bonds and subordinated bank
bonds. The index is market-cap weighted.
Dow Jones LATixx Chile Measures the performance of all local
Asset Backed Securities investment-grade asset backed securities
Index issued in Chile. The index is market-cap
weighted.
Dow Jones LATixx Chile Measures the performance of the letras
Letras Hipotecarias Index hipotecarias (mortgage-backed bond) market
in Chile. The index is market-cap
weighted.
Measures the performance of Cetes (Mexican
Dow Jones LATixx Mexico Treasury bills) with a maturity term
Government CETES Index between one month and one year. The index
is market-cap weighted.
Measures the performance of Bonos de
Dow Jones LATixx Mexico Desarrollo del Gobierno Federal issued in
Government UDIS Index Unidades de Inversion (Udis) with a
maturity term of over one year. The index
is market-cap weighted.
Measures the performance of taxable bonds
Dow Jones LATixx Mexico issued by the Mexican Government in USD
Government UMS Index with a maturity term of over one year. The
index is market-cap weighted.
Measures the performance of fixed-rate
Dow Jones LATixx Mexico "Bonos de Desarrollo del Gobierno Federal"
Government BONOS 1-5 issued after January 2003, with a 6M
Year Index payment coupon and a maturity term between
364 and 1820 days (364 < Bonos M
< or = to 1820). The index is
market-cap weighted.
Measures the performance of fixed-rate
Dow Jones LATixx Mexico "Bonos de Desarrollo del Gobierno Federal"
Government BONOS 5-10 issued after January 2003, with a 6M
Year Index payment coupon and a maturity term between
1820 and 3640 days (1820 < Bonos M < or = to
3640). The index is market-cap weighted.
These indexes are included in any Dow
Licensing Requirements Jones Indexes intraday data licensing
agreement. A separate license to use these
indexes and related data is not required.