Building a new asset class

The recent launch by UBS of a global infrastructure index provided a much needed boost to the fledgling asset class. The new index is a rival to Macquarie Bank's Macquarie Global Infrastructure Index, which was launched last June, and could be used as the underlying for a new breed of structured product

In February of this year, UBS partnered with Standard & Poor's (S&P) to create a new global index series consisting of 84 global indexes to provide price and accumulation data for listed infrastructure and utilities companies around the world based on their free-float market capitalisation. The index could provide the underlying to a new series of structured products, based around the emerging asset class.

UBS and S&P compiled their universe of infrastructure and utility stocks using S&P's basic