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Alternative UCITS return -0.38 per cent in January… Gottex announces launches Swedish multi-asset UCITS fund…

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January proved to be a mixed bag in terms of strategy performance within the alternative UCITS universe. According to the UAI Global index, provided by Alix Capital, the average fund lost -0.38 per cent last month.

Eight of the eleven strategy indices ended the month in negative territory. Equity market neutral was the strongest performer, returning 0.51 per cent, followed by gains of 0.25 per cent within the UAI Fixed Income index and 0.12 per cent within the UAI Event-Driven index. The worst performing strategy was the UAI CTA index, ending the month with losses of     -2.30 per cent, closely followed by UAI Emerging Markets, down -2.05 per cent. All other strategies recorded losses of less than 1 per cent.
 
Assets within the UCITS programme at Cheyne Capital Management (UK) LLP have exceeded USD500million. The firm, one of Europe’s leading hedge fund managers with over USD6.5billion of assets under management, recently launched the Cheyne European Mid Cap Equity Fund. This helped push assets in Cheyne’s UCITS umbrella to USD575million. That figure was just under USD30million only two years ago. In total, Cheyne now has five UCITS under its umbrella. They include the following: Cheyne European Mid Cap Equity Fund; Cheyne Global Credit Fund; Cheyne Convertibles Absolute Return Fund; Cheyne European Real Estate Bond Fund, and Cheyne South East Asia Long/Short (Malacca) Fund.
 
Jonathan Lourie, co-Founder and Chief Executive said: “We are enormously proud of the firm’s achievement in growing its UCITS offering to over USD500 million during this period. It is testament to Cheyne’s expertise and innovation and demonstrates our commitment to adapting to the changing regulatory environment, enabling us to provide investors in different jurisdictions with access to some of our core alternative investment strategies.”
 
Gottex Fund Management Holdings Limited this week announced the launch of its Swedish multi-asset UCITS product on the Folksam unit linked platform, as well as the opening of its Scandinavian office.
 
Gottex recently launched the Gottex GMA Balanserad Fund, a daily dealing UCITS fund, on the Folksam unit linked platform in Sweden. The fund is a globally diversified core investment solution that invests in nine asset classes including global and Swedish equities, emerging markets, real estate, commodities and hedge funds. The asset allocation is inspired by top performing US University Endowments like Harvard and Yale, which have generated very strong returns over the last 25 years.

The Gottex GMA Balanserad Fund uses cost efficient implementation by accessing asset classes with low cost smart beta with returns hedged back to Swedish Krona.

Separately, as a result of the growing interest of Scandinavian investors in multi-asset products for global diversified exposure, Gottex has decided to open a regional Scandinavian office in Stockholm, which will be headed up by Peter Seippel, Gottex’s Head of Scandinavian business.

On the launch of the fund Mike Azlen, Co-PM and CIO of Gottex’s European Multi-Asset business, commented: “We are very excited with the launch of Gottex GMA Balanserad Fund, which will allow Swedish retail clients to invest like large institutional investors, offering access to asset classes like hedge funds, commodities, real estate and managed futures in a single daily liquidity UCITS product. The fund is relatively unique in Sweden in that it is truly multi-asset by investing in nine different asset classes.”

Susanne Bolin-Gärtner, Head of Folksam Fund Selection, stated: “Gottex GMA Balanserad Fund complements our range in a very positive way and when we saw the chance to be the first in Sweden to offer Gottex multi-asset UCITS products we had no doubt at all.”

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has partnered up with Koris International to launch the Merrill Lynch Dynamic Capital Protection UCITS Fund on the US bank’s leading UCITS platform; Merrill Lynch Investment Solutions. This latest fund to join the MLIS platform aims to provide institutional investors with a capital-protected solution that uses core-satellite investment principles within a risk control framework to generate risk premium. 

Merill Lynch International, in its capacity as investment manager of the sub-fund, has appointed Koris as investment advisor.
 


The combination of a low interest rate environment and an ageing population is putting increasing pressure on asset and liability managers, particularly insurance companies, to deliver pre-defined rates of return within the parameters of rising prudential obligations. By using an efficient risk transfer method in the sub-fund, MLIS and Koris aim to tactically allocate into risk assets such as equities, while limiting the amount of the Solvency II Capital Requirement that would otherwise be needed.
 


“We are delighted to have developed this partnership with Koris,” commented Philippe Lopategui, BAML’s managing director and head of the alternative funds platform and global financing solutions. “They have proven over many years to be able to deliver consistent, robust and relevant investment solutions to institutional investors with a grounding in highly innovative academic research on portfolio construction and risk management. We believe this dynamic allocation strategy will prove compelling to a wide range of our investor base.”
 

Jean-René Giraud, chief executive officer, Koris, added: “This partnership confirms the industry’s interest in dynamic allocation and risk-budgeting solutions and underlines the relevance of the strategies Koris has developed for its clients. In addition, teaming up with BAML provides us with access to their unrivalled distribution capabilities across Europe, and allows for a partnership with a group who truly understand the shifting demands of institutional investors in this space.”

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