Société Générale, the French-listed group that owns SG Hambros private bank, is issuing 61 new covered warrants focusing on the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and on commodities, all to be listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The move is in line with the group’s ambition to provide the widest range of covered warrants in the market.

“There are two main reasons to issue these now,” a spokesperson told WealthBriefing “Many of our current covered warrants will expire in December 2008 and we want to make sure our investors will find the product they are looking for after those products expired.

Also, the markets have never been so volatile and issuing new covered warrants shows our capacity to react in reissuing new warrants with adapted strikes and maturities.”

26 of the new warrants will be offered on the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 indices, offering both “Put” and “Call” options to enable investors to take a bearish or bullish view, respectively. The warrants also offer four maturity dates to give investors further choice.

Investors should be aware that if you purchase a Put covered warrant it is considered as a short position under the UK Financial Services Authority rules. According to a statement on the bank’s website, it will not be quoting bid/ask prices for Put warrants on UK underlying financial assets until further notice.

Société Générale also offers 25 new covered warrants on five commodities underlyings: Aluminium, Brent Crude Oil, Copper, Platinum and Silver.

These warrants are also offered in both Put and Call options with various maturity dates to enable investors to efficiently achieve their desired exposure.

With this latest issue, Société Générale now offers more than 850 covered warrants, enabling investors to access a broad selection of UK indices and commodities.