Assets on the Sciens Managed Account Platform (MAP) are up 35 per cent year-on-year to end June 2013, with two new trading advisors added to the platform – US-based Revolution Capital Management and Japan’s Stats Investment Management.
Both trading advisors are replicating their existing benchmark strategies in cells recently launched on the Sciens Managed Account Platform. The number of institutional users on the Sciens MAP has also increased by over 200 per cent in the corresponding period.
Revolution Capital Management has launched a cell that replicates its Alpha programme which follows a commodity trading advisor (CTA) strategy that develops quantitative systematic trading systems that seeks to have low correlations to existing managed futures offerings. It aims to provide a complementary solution to other CTAs by developing programmes with low correlations to those that follow trend-exploiting strategies. The Alpha programme is designed to be diversified with short- and medium-term pattern recognition and targets 12 per cent annual volatility based on daily returns. The benchmark Alpha programme (which the Sciens MAP cell seeks to replicate) has achieved annualised returns of 11.1 per cent since its inception in June 2007.
The Ginga Service Sector Fund, managed by Stats Investment Management, is also replicated in a cell on the Sciens MAP. The benchmark fund is a Japanese equity long/short fund which focuses on the high-tech (software service, Internet, media telecom) and service sectors (business and consumer services). The manager seeks to take advantage of the low analyst coverage for the service sector, the sector’s dynamic business environment and the frequent valuation gaps as sources of substantial alpha. The investment team uses its sector knowledge to generate alpha from focused, long-term bottom-up research activity. The manager aims to use a highly diversified approach in a wide variety of subsectors and a large number of stocks to guard against market volatility. Since the benchmark fund’s inception in June 2006, it has a cumulative gross return of 171 per cent.
Dr Stavros Siokos, chief executive of Sciens Alternative Investments, says: “We are pleased to welcome Revolution Capital Management and Stats Investment Management to the Sciens Managed Account Platform. We continue to actively seek opportunities to offer our investors unique access to a wide range of top performing strategies combined with the corporate governance afforded by our platform.
“In line with the increasing focus on governance, institutional investors continue to seek in-depth information when making investment decisions regarding their hedge fund portfolios. Managed account platforms provide greater transparency along with the security and control they require. We have seen growing interest in our platform since the launch of S.M.A.R.T., our interactive risk analytics and portfolio construction engine that enables investors to evaluate their hedge fund portfolios and aggregated fund exposures.”
Sciens MAP furnishes client users with in depth access to its proprietary integrated, risk analytics technology, made available to investors via S.M.A.R.T. Sciens’ interactive look through application allows investors to perform in-depth analysis of their exposures at both the single strategy and the aggregated portfolio level. Data feeds are based upon T+2 reporting on a “by position” basis.
“Expanding our managed account platform has been a top priority for Sciens, and we finished the first half of 2013 on a high, having grown the platform’s assets by over 35 per cent to the end of June 2013. Sciens has also increased the number of managers on the platform having added eight new strategies in the first six months of this year and with another six pending approval,” says Siokos.
