The Lyxor MAP has north of USD8 billion in assets under management and has approximately 80 funds available in a hedge fund managed account format.
But it's not only offshore hedge fund managed accounts that investors are looking for today.
According to Daniele Spada (pictured), Head of Lyxor MAP, there is a strong trend in Europe for UCITS funds.
The Lyxor Alternative UCITS platform has seen its stable of funds grow to eight in total – six external single manager funds and two internal single manager funds.
The latest fund, which launched 19th June, is the Lyxor/Chenavari Credit Fund, a long/short credit fund with a European focus.
"The next UCITS fund we are preparing to launch will be a US long/short equity special situations strategy. We aim to add a further fund by year-end, which will bring the total number of UCITS funds on the platform to 10," says Spada.
"Over the last 12 months we've looked to add funds in strategies that were under-represented in the overall UCITS investment universe to offer diversification benefits that investors won't find elsewhere. Our strategy is one of quality not quantity. The funds we select are based on what we think could work effectively in the current macro market environment and which investors will want to allocate into."
This is all part of Lyxor's long-term strategy to offer global investors the opportunity to invest in multiple fund structures that best suit their needs.
Alongside the UCITS platform, Lyxor is also building out its AIFMD regulated fund platform. It launched its first fund at the end of 2014 – a CTA manager called Quantmetrics Capital. Chenavari is also available in an AIFMD-compliant format, in addition to two other funds; a long/short equity European manager and an event-driven European manager.
Spada confirms that a fifth fund is preparing to launch on the AIFMD platform.
All of the AIFMD-compliant funds that Lyxor has launched this year are domiciled in Luxembourg. Its UCITS funds are domiciled in Ireland.
With respect to its Jersey-based MAP, Lyxor is choosing to opportunistically redomicile funds onto the Luxembourg platform on a step-by-step basis. "We have a tranche of funds that are ready to be transferred to the AIFMD platform but there is no need to transfer our Jersey funds on a wholesale basis at this stage. The reality is we are currently getting more requests for UCITS funds than AIFMD-compliant funds.
"We have some US investors that are considering investing in strategies available through our AIFMD-compliant funds so we are presently setting up K1 feeder fund versions of these strategies to meet this demand," confirms Spada.
Aside from building out its AIFMD and UCITS fund offering, another area of development at Lyxor this year has been to create hedge fund managed accounts that are composed of more than one manager; effectively a multi-manager managed account format.
"This is one managed account fund structure composed of three or more different hedge fund managers to which we can delegate pools of capital on an ongoing basis depending on how the markets change. We are ready to offer this either in a hedge fund format or an alternative UCITS format. The team is currently working on a couple of these projects, which should be ready by the end of the year," comments Spada.
