The London-based Fortune Group is to launch a new institutional investor share class for its Market Wizards Fund.

The new MWF B class, which will be introduced on 1 March, will be identical to the existing A class (formerly MWF Plus), but with discounted fees equal to 50 per cent of the management and incentive fees currently charged to the A class. It will provide institutional investors with a more efficient investment vehicle by eliminating the lag inherent in retro-cessions and it's track record will be the MWF A track record adjusted for fees paid by investors in the B class.

Market Wizards Fund B has delivered 33 out of 39 months of positive returns with annualised returns of in excess of 8.34 per cent and is ranked 82 percentile in the InvestorForce database. The annual standard deviation for this share class is now circa 3.27 per cent. Since inception, MWF A has realised an average annual compounded return of 7.09 per cent with 3.19 per cent volatility.

"In fact, there have been institutional investors that have paid net fees (fees after retro-cessions) equivalent to the B class fees since the inception of the Market Wizards Fund," said Jack Schwager, managing partner at Fortune. "But the reported returns for the MWF A class do not reflect such reimbursements."

"Increasingly, the make-up of our client base is shifting to pension funds, insurance companies and endowment," adds Simon Hopkins, Fortune's CEO.  "We have simply responded to their demands, where there is a lot more focus on total expense ratios, and fund of fund fees."

The minimum investment for this share class is USD 10 million.

Background notes: Fortune is a London-based alternative asset management firm, with offices in Geneva, Boston and New York. Since 1997, Fortune and its sister company, Global Fund Analysis, have been involved in manager selection and fund evaluation in the alternatives arena. Using the resources of GFA, Fortune manages one of the top performing hedge fund of funds, 'The Market Wizards Fund (B class), plus a number of strategy specific and multi-manager hedge funds on a proprietary as well as an advisory basis for leading institutional clients.