EEA Fund Management has brought on board Oriel Asset Management duo David Urch and Tim Hall and added their long/short directional UK equity market fund and its long-biased sister strategy to the firm’s product range.
The high-conviction, multi-cap UK funds have been renamed the EEA Absolute Return Fund and TB EEA UK Equity Market Fund.
The EEA Absolute Return Fund is a Cayman-domiciled long/short directional equity fund, launched in August 2009. It has a bottom-up investment approach, underpinning an active momentum strategy focused on identifying and harnessing positive change in UK-listed companies. The managers source ideas from across the market capitalisation spectrum and are indifferent to sector or industry. Macro-economic and technical analysis is used to augment the idea generation process and to inform the portfolio construction process. Companies identified through this process as having negative change and earnings characteristics will be candidates for shorting. The EEA Absolute Return Fund aims to deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns with low volatility and low correlation to equity markets.
The EEA Absolute Return Fund returned 8.9 per cent in its USD share class in 2012 and year to date is up an estimated 8.22 per cent to the end of September 2013. The fund is primarily aimed at institutional and sophisticated high net worth investors.
The TB EEA UK Equity Market Fund is a UK-domiciled UCITS fund. Since inception in May 2012 the TB EEA UK Equity Market Fund has returned 41.33 per cent, outperforming the IMA UK All Companies Sector average by almost eight per cent. It is top quartile in its sector since launch, having exceeded its sector median in 13 out of the past 16 full calendar months.
Urch is lead manager of the EEA Absolute Return Fund and the TB EEA UK Equity Market Fund. He has a record of delivering superior risk-adjusted returns in the UK equity market over a 14 year period.
Hall has extensive experience of the UK fund management industry, ranging from UK equity investing through to managing large investment teams and leading client service propositions.
The fund managers will join EEA from Oriel Asset Management.
Urch says: “We are looking forward to working with EEA, whose strong distribution track record and significant infrastructure and levels of support will further assist us in building greater market traction for both of our funds.”
Hall adds: “The transition to EEA has been seamless and our investors will continue to benefit from the same disciplined investment process, philosophy and management team that has delivered such attractive performance.”
Simon Shaw, chairman of EEA Fund Management, says: “We are looking for innovative investment propositions and talented fund managers to complement our existing investment offering. David and Tim, and the EEA UK Equity Absolute Return Fund and TB EEA UK Equity Fund, fit these criteria. They have excellent performance track records and we believe their UK equity expertise is a good fit with our existing alternatives-focused fund and investment product range.
“Their arrival is timely, coinciding with the nascent UK economic recovery and investors looking to capitalise on this through UK equity strategies. There are many UK equity funds out there but David and Tim’s genuinely stand out owing to their distinctive underlying investment philosophy and process, which have generated highly attractive risk-adjusted returns.”
