Broad Index Synthetic Trust Offering - BISTRO

Proprietary name used by J.P. Morgan for creating collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) from credit derivatives. The Broad Index Secured Trust Offering (BISTRO) was introduced in 1997 and was the predecessor to the synthetic collateralized debt obligation structure that become popular in the following years.

A synthetic CDO utilized credit derivatives as a means of transferring credit risk in a portfolio. Synthetic CDOs may be used by banks to manage risk capital and use credit default swaps rather than asset ownership. BISTRO is believed to be one of the first synthetic CDO instruments ever created.