Financial services firm Matrix has launched its first Ucits III fund.
The Matrix Asia Ucits Fund will be one of the very few pan-Asian long/short equity funds and will be managed by Rupert Foster who has 16 years experience in managing Asian long/short funds.
Foster also manages the Matrix Asia Fund, an unregulated Cayman domiciled fund which has a similar investment objective to the Matrix Asia Ucits Fund.
The Matrix Asia Ucits Fund will be able to rotate actively between China and Japan, which account for 70 per cent of the market capitalisation of the Asian stock exchanges, to best capture their respective stages of their economic cycles.
The fund will seek to achieve its investment objective by investing in or gaining exposure to Asian equity markets including, but not limited to: China, Japan, India, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australasia and Singapore.
The fund’s long/short strategy aims to reduce risk by targeting a lower level of volatility. The use of a long/short strategy generally means that risk can be reduced as the performance is likely to go up less than the relevant markets when equity markets rise, and should fall less than the relevant markets when equity markets fall.
Foster says: “Having a long/short pan-Asian investment remit is very important to me as it gives me the ultimate tool kit to deliver outperformance for my clients. I expect my current portfolio positioning of shorting China and being long Japan to remain until some time in the fourth quarter of this year when I expect to rotate back to being long China and short Japan. Over an investment cycle, I expect to add a third of the performance from my short book.”
Chris Merry (pictured), chief executive of Matrix Group, adds: “I am delighted that we have launched our first Ucits III offering. Rupert has an outstanding track record which will now be accessible to a much broader investor base.”
