were in their fifties or sixties. After the initial enthusiasm SAMs 3 and 4, for Scotland, could not be launched until the securitization of SAMs 1 and 2 had been completed, and they were also delayed by the different legal system in Scotland. They were introduced in mid-February 1997 and took longer to place with investors than SAMs 1 and 2. During the preparations for SAMs 5 and 6, SBC Warburg merged with Union Bank of Switzerland. The merger was announced on 8 December 1997 and created UBS AG. Investors could not be found for SAMs 5 and 6, which had to be taken up by SBC Warburg itself. Bank of Scotland hoped that UBS/SBC Warburg would find new investors for the SAMs, but instead had to withdraw the product. BoS SAMs 2, 4 and 6 were 0% interest mortgages, with the lender's percentage share of the appreciation being three times the percentage ratio of the loan to the initial value of the property (LTV). Competitors' reaction In March 1998, after Bank of Scotland had withdrawn their product, Barclays Bank launched their shared appreciation mortgage. Like Bank of Scotland's zero-interest mortgage, the maximum loan to property value ratio (LTV) was 25%, no interest was charged, and the lender's share of the appreciation was three times the LTV. Barclays sold 3,253 SAMs between May and July 1998. Barclays Capital securitized the mortgages in 1999 through Millshaw SAMS No 1 Ltd, a £97.84m triple-A rated zero coupon bond, which was a 55-year deal. The take-up by investors was slow, but institutions bought the bonds for their high returns. On 11 July 1998 the Financial Times reported that shared appreciation mortgages were temporarily off the market after demand from borrowers had exceeded the supply of money from the bonds market. £750m worth of bonds had been sold by Bank of Scotland and Barclays Bank. Shared appreciation mortgages did not subsequently return to the market. When house prices increased and the appreciation became much greater than the initial value of the properties, the borrowers owed the investors the majority of the value of their properties and were left with only a small proportion of the value for themselves. Millennium Product The Bank of Scotland shared-appreciation mortgage was selected as one of 1,012 Millennium Products by the Design Council. The Millennium Product concept was launched by Prime Minister Tony Blair in September 1997 and the