Trium Capital, the London-based alternative asset manager, has launched the Trium European Equity Market Neutral UCITS Fund. The proven strategy, which synthesises quantitative and fundamental analysis, has successfully generated alpha, irrespective of market conditions, with minimal drawdowns over its eight-year track record.
The fund will be co-managed by Nikki Martin and Tom Ayres, who have successfully refined and implemented the strategy at leading investment houses, including BlueCrest. The fund takes a differentiated approach to European equity market neutral investing. Developed over more than a decade, their investment process is a synthesis of highly objective, proprietary, data-driven analysis and deep, sceptical, bottom-up fundamental research.
This ‘quantamental’ strategy originates in the managers’ unique experience. Martin’s training as a financial auditor fine-tuned her ability to forensically unpick company characteristics and management subtleties. Ayres’ background as an engineer allowed him to develop and evolve a multi-factor proprietary screening system to optimise opportunity discovery in different market scenarios.
Martin, co-manager of the Trium European Equity Market Neutral Fund, says: “Most of the quant strategies emerging these days rely on big data to crunch numbers, without understanding the nuance of what these numbers mean. While it can help identify inefficiencies that exist due to human biases, we strongly believe in the fundamental side of the process.”
Ayres, co-manager of the fund, adds: “We want to own quality stocks with strong cash generation, good market positioning, strong leadership and which can be acquired at reasonable valuations. On our short book, the opposite holds true.”
Shenan Dhanani (pictured), co-head of Trium Capital, says: “At Trium, we aim to ensure sustainable alpha generation across every stage of the cycle. The portfolio’s focus on capital conservation delivers uncorrelated returns when investors need it most. Nikki and Tom’s proven expertise are a great addition to Trium’s emerging elite talent.”
Donald Pepper, co-head of Trium Capital, adds: “We are seeing strong investor demand for this strategy. We launched with over USD100 million of day one capital on 4 December and have a strong pipeline of sophisticated institutional, wealth manager and family office investors at various stages of due diligence. The historic profile of returns has been very steady and, in these uncertain times, investors are placing a premium on reliability. As one investor said to me: Boring is good!”
Trium Capital is home to an innovative range of specialist alternative investment teams – including equity long/short and event-driven, as well as diversified macro and statistical arbitrage. The group also has a full-scope UCITS platform for investment managers to set up Irish-domiciled funds.
