Jeremy Podger is to manage London-based Threadneedle's fifth hedge fund offering, a long/short equity fund named Global Crescendo.

The new fund aims to deliver absolute returns to investors in excess of 10% per year accompanied by low single digit volatility.

The fund is due to be launched in April of 2005 and will be managed on a global sector basis, with regional weightings being a secondary consideration.

Podger took over the reins of Threadneedle's GBP 233 million Global Select Growth fund in late 2003. Since then the Threadneedle Global Select Growth C1 fund has returned 4.53% versus the IMA Global Growth sector average performance over the same period of just 1.33%.