Société Générale is planning to list 11 Synthetic Zero products on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) next week with a total deal size of £55m, making a significant addition to its existing listings.

The products, which are types of bonus certificate, offer a different risk reward profile on 11 different UK equities. The bank is issuing £5m on each product.

"It is the first time in the UK that an issuer has listed a series like this," says Alexandre Houpert, London-based head of listed products for northern Europe for SG. "We have launched roughly 200 of these types of product on Euronext Paris over the past two years, and in Germany, where it is listed on the Euwax and Frankfurt Exchange, it is one of the most popular products we have launched." The products are called Capped Bonus in those countries.

There is no minimum purchase price for the certificates, aside from the price of the individual share. The structures have daily liquidity on the LSE, and are tradable through a stockbroker like a single share.

The product works by setting a synthetic level for each stock, which the investor is guaranteed to receive when it redeems, provided that the equity is not below a set level at maturity. Each stock has a different fixed yield of between 14% and 30%, and a protection barrier of between 23% and 45%. The products are not path-dependent.

The listings have come at the request of wealth managers and retail investors, who have been looking for extra yield against a backdrop of extremely low interest rates, says Houpert. "The UK retail market is not that sophisticated, but it is a really straightforward solution, and it's really suited to fit with the client's needs, as they needed to find a yield enhancement strategy for their asset allocation."

The investment is also capital gains tax eligible, which means returns will be taxed at 18%, rather than the comparative income tax rate of 50%.

The shares included in the new launch are Anglo American, Barclays, British Airways, BHP Bilton, Land Securities, Lloyds Banking Group, Man Group, Prudential, Royal Bank of Scotland, Rio Tinto and Xstrata. It brings the total number of products in SG's listed range on the LSE to more than 700, including turbos, listed options and Lyxor exchange-traded notes among other structures. New underlyings for Synthetic Zeroes are set to follow, says Houpert, such as commodities and indexes.