Bond behemoth PIMCO has launched the GIS Income Fund to be managed by Dan Ivascyn, managing director and head of the mortgage credit portfolio management team, and Alfred Murata, executive vice president and the mortgage credit team’s portfolio manager.

The Dublin-domiciled fund will invest in fixed income securities globally and follow the same strategy as the firm’s US-based fund, which has been running since 2007. The US fund’s biggest sector weighting is to non-agency mortgage-backed securities, at 24 per cent, reported FTAdviser, with agency MBS making up 15 per cent of the portfolio and asset-backed securities 8 per cent. 

The Dublin-based strategy would be “extremely similar” to its US counterpart according to Ivascyn, with the capacity to invest in a broad range of instruments including government bonds, inflation-linked bonds, agency and non-agency MBS, investment grade corporate bonds, high yield corporate bonds and emerging market bonds, with Ivascyn commenting that it would use “the same overall investment process and the same views towards asset allocation”.
 
Added Ivascyn: “The fund is a little bit unique because the steady income distribution is its primary objective and total return is secondary whereas total return is usually the primary objective at Pimco.”
 
Geneva-based Alix Capital this week announced the winners of its inaugural UCITS Alternative Index (UAI) Awards. The awards cover 13 categories and honour the best performing UCITS hedge funds over a one-year period and three-year period respectively. The winners have been selected by a committee headed up by Louis Zanolin, CEO of Alix Capital. The best-performing single UCITS hedge funds over 1-year and 3-years respectively were the Renaissance Ottoman Fund and Credit Suisse Global Carry Selector Fund. Within the FX space, the winners were GAM Star Discretionary FX (1-year) and Neuberger Berman’s Diversified Currency Fund (3-years). Details of all the winners can be found on Alix Capital’s website.
 
Zanolin said that with assets continuing to grow within the UCITS hedge funds space – total AUM now more than EUR140billion – “it was time to recognize the best performing funds”. “We expect to see this recent growth trend persist as the industry adapts to new regulation and investment opportunities resulting from the changing economic landscape, which is constantly being reshaped,” said Zanolin.
 
London-based Odey Asset Management has launched a new UCITS fund for the former Griffin Capital Management trader it hired last year, reported FINalternatives this week. Markus Rezny will manage the Dublin-domiciled long/short Odey Orion Fund and will have the ability to invest across asset classes and geographies. Rezny joined Odey AM last April from Griffin where he managed a long/short fund – European Opportunities. The UCITS fund will be able to investors in euro, US dollar and sterling share classes and charge a 0.75 per cent management fee and 20 per cent performance fee. It is believed that the firm is also drafting plans for a UCITS version of its USD1.8billion flagship fund: the Odey European Fund, which first launched in 1992. The firm’s most recent launch in October 2011 was the Odey Odyssey fund, wrote Investment Week, a multi-asset vehicle managed by Tim Bond.