issues . please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . learn how and when to remove these template messages this article relies too much on references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . august 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message this article contains content that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . august 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message learn how and when to remove this template message source uk services ltd. type private industry financial services founded 2008 founders bank of america merrill lynch goldman sachs morgan stanley headquarters london uk key people julian ide ceo products exchange traded funds exchange trade commodities asset management number of employees 34 website sourceetf.com source uk services ltd. or simply source is a specialist british based provider of exchange traded funds etfs and exchange traded commodities etcs . the first products of source 22 t etcs and 13 etfs became available in april 2009 on deutsche b rse . 1 source was started by five of the world s largest equity trading houses bofa merrill lynch goldman sachs j.p. morgan morgan stanley and nomura . 2 3 in 2014 warburg pincus the large global private equity firm purchased 51 % and is now the sixth owner . as part of that deal lee kranefuss the innovator behind the ishares etf line at barclays and blackrock became executive chairman of source . source has raised nearly us 20 billion in assets since its launch to date 4 becoming one of the fastest growing etf provider in europe . 5 6 7 8 source s product range consists of 53 equities 31 commodities 3 fixed income and 4 alternative products . 4 contents 1 legal and regulatory structure 2 motivation and opportunities 2.1 limited counterparty risk 2.2 improved liquidity 2.3 better product performance 3 recent partnerships 3.1 source pimco 3.2 source man glg 4 other achievements and innovations 5 recent product launches 6 source etps 6.1 source etfs 6.2 source t etcs 6.3 source p etcs 7 product list 8 key partners 9 awards 10 see also 11 references 12 external links legal and regulatory structure edit the parent company source holdings limited is a cayman incorporated irish tax resident company . it has two subsidiaries source investment management limited an irish ucits management company source investment management and source uk services limited an fsa regulated company source uk . source is used to refer to group entities as a whole . 4 source investment management responsible for the management of source markets plc has been approved as a ucits management company and is regulated by the central bank of ireland . 9 source uk is authorised by the financial conduct authority . 4 motivation and opportunities edit source executives claim there were several raison d tre for source at launch . limited counterparty risk edit with events such as the collapse of lehman brothers and near collapse of aig in september 2008 credit risk was brought to the forefront of investors concerns . 10 11 source which was launched in the midst of the recent financial crisis responded to this by setting self imposed guidelines on its exposure to its counterparties that exceed european ucits regulatory requirements . it has capped exposure to derivative counterparts to a 4.5 % which is well below the 10 % limit set by ucits iii . source s open architecture multi partner platform allows it further diversify counterparty exposure over the various participating banks . an independent asset manager is responsible for managing the assets adding a new level of investor protection . 12 13 14 15 furthermore source uk services commodity products are secured by t bills g 7 bonds and cash making them the most stable counterparty structure in the industry . 16 17 improved liquidity edit source aims to be a catalyst for liquidity in the etf market and believes it is the most important factor in the take up of etfs in europe . in the united states daily on exchange trading volume on average exceeds 70 billion which accounts for 10 % of etf assets under management aum whilst in europe that figure is approximately 2 billion which accounts for about 1 % of aum . 18 19 20 to increase liquidity on its products and avoid fragmentation source limits the number of exchanges it lists its products on . currently source products can be listed on the deutsche b rse london stock exchange and swiss stock exchange . 2 3 21 22 better product performance edit source aims to bring innovation and efficiency to the etf industry on all fronts whether it is structuring efficient etfs offering access to new asset classes or working with index providers to put forward more efficient products based on optimised indices . source claims to obtain better performance through the use of derivatives which guarantees not only a very robust counterparty risk structure but also a tighter index tracking . source products are recognised in the industry for their very low tracking error . 23 24 in many cases source has worked with index providers in order to offer etf investors that perform better than competitor products . of these the most notable is the partnership of source with stoxx to create optimised sector indices . in july 2009 source teamed up with stoxx the index provider to launch a range of optimised sector indices . these new indices are fundamentally different from the existing ones as three new filters applied in picking the underlying stocks which are liquidity availability to borrow and concentration . the market response to the products was impressive with source gaining a large market share in a short period of time . also trading volumes on sector products jumped to 9.4 bn shortly after the products became available representing almost a six fold increase . 8 25 in commodities investing source recognised the importance of the shape of the underlying commodities futures curve in deriving efficiencies to the end investor . as a result source launched source crude oil enhanced t etc which uses dynamic rolling rules in order to mitigate the effects of contango in the oil futures markets . this product tracks s & p gsci crude oil enhanced total return index providing a significantly higher level of correlation to the price performance of spot wti crude oil . 16 26 27 recent partnerships edit source pimco edit in december 2010 source and pimco the world s largest fixed income manager announced their partnership of creating fixed income etfs based on proprietary indices and range of actively managed products . 28 29 30 source and pimco launched their first two products in early january 2011 the pimco euro enhanced short maturity source etf and the pimco european advantage the former being europe s first actively managed etf . 31 the latest addition to the platform was the pimco us dollar enhanced short maturity source etf . 32 in line with its inaugural aim the products offered through the partnership focus on the unmet demands 29 of european investors through innovation . 30 for instance in the current challenging environment of low returns for money market etfs pimco source euro and us dollar enhanced maturity funds aim to overcome this issue by active management . 33 pimco s older us domiciled mint fund that is based on the same strategy has been very successful so far in attracting investor money with the fund becoming the very first actively managed etf in the world to cross 1bn mark . 34 35 the pimco european advantage government bond index source etf though a passive tracker addresses the fundamental issues in bond investing by replicating pimco s european advantage government bond index that is based on gdp weighted methodology . 36 37 38 source man glg edit on 31 january 2011 in partnership with man group the world s largest listed hedge fund 39 source launched man glg europe plus source etf . the new fund aims to outperform stock markets by tracking the man glg europe plus index which is composed of approximately 200 250 european stocks selected using algorithm from a pool of broker ideas provided exclusively to the man glg and rebalanced daily . the management fee of the fund is 75 basis points . the strategy underpins this etf has been run by man glg since 2005 successfully and produced impressive outperformance when compared to representative large capitalization equity benchmarks . 40 41 other achievements and innovations edit source became the first european etf provider to launch 18 innovative sector products that are built to benefit from diversification liquidity and availability of stocks to borrow in the underlying indices . the underlying indices the stoxx european 600 optimised supersector indices were specifically created by stoxx and source in july 2010 . 42 43 44 at the same time source also initiated a first large scale create to lend on etfs in europe . as a result source sector products turnover increased this has also tightened bid offer spreads lowering the cost of owning products benefiting all market participants . 2 3 45 46 since launch in july 2010 the source optimised sector etfs have increased the overall sector turnover by over 700 % and continues to capture over 80 % of the sector turnover . 47 48 49 in june 2010 eurex launched options on source etfs allowing investors to express their view on market . this helped the etf options market to become more efficient . after the addition of options on source etfs the market grew exponentially from 7 mn to 400 mn . 5 50 in january 2010 source issued source rdx etf . it was another contribution of source to the wider market . by using a new index which releases dividends when they are only paid source overcame the hurdles that investor face when investing on russian stocks . 5 51 in june 2010 source issued s & p vix futures source etf and became the first european etf provider to offer investors exposure to volatility in an etf form . the etf tracks s & p 500 vix futures index which is the most popular index for investors who wants exposure to volatility . 52 53 54 recent product launches edit on 11 april 2011 source launched the euro stoxx optimised banks etf . the etf tracks the euro stoxx optimised banks total return index net which has been optimised to reduce exposure to illiquid stocks . 55 56 on 18 april 2011 source launched three physically backed precious metals etp source physical silver p etc source physical platinum p etc and source physical palladium p etc. each product is secured by physical metal held in jpmorgan s london vaults and have a 0.39 % annual fixed fee . they are listed on london stock exchange and trade in us dollars . 57 58 on 19 april source teamed up with nomura to launch the nomura voltage mid term source etf . it is claimed that this new volatility product minimises the negative impact of contango of investing vix futures by also investing in us treasuries when volatility is low . 59 60 source etps edit source etfs edit source etfs enable an investor to gain exposure to a broad range of equity indices . they achieve their target performance by investing in liquid equities and using total return swaps to minimize any tracking error . as a result the swap counterparties bofa merrill lynch goldman sachs . credit suisse j.p. morgan morgan stanley and nomura provide the target performance of the index to the fund . the source uk services etf structure has a fundamental advantage relative