Aberdeen Investments is preparing to launch a concentrated fund of hedge funds aimed at giving institutional and private-banking investors access to a selected group of established managers, with an initial focus on clients in Asia, according to a report by Fund Selector Asia.
The proposed vehicle, dubbed “Hedge Fund Legends”, is expected to launch in the coming months and initially target cornerstone distributors including Asian private banks. Aberdeen is targeting approximately $200m for the fund.
The portfolio is expected to invest with eight to 10 hedge fund managers across strategies including multi-strategy, equity market neutral, credit relative value, systematic macro and event driven investing.
Among the managers being considered are Capula, through its global relative-value strategy, and Millennium, the multi-strategy hedge fund firm. Final allocations remain subject to due diligence, capacity availability and Aberdeen’s portfolio construction process.
Dongyue Zhang, head of investment specialists for APAC, multi-asset, alternatives and quantitative investment strategies at Aberdeen Investments, said the firm sees opportunities for hedge funds amid continued dispersion across equities and credit markets, as well as divergent movements in interest rates, currencies and commodities.
The proposed fund is intended to provide an alternative source of returns at a time when the diversification benefits of traditional stock and bond portfolios have become less consistent during periods of market stress.
Aberdeen said the strategy will target an absolute US dollar return of cash plus 5%, rather than seeking to generate a regular income stream. The fund will be available to institutional and private-banking clients, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific market.
The manager selection process will focus on investment processes and the ability to generate differentiated risk-adjusted returns, rather than relying solely on a firm’s reputation. Aberdeen also intends to assess each manager’s role within the overall portfolio before determining allocations.
The portfolio will not use equal weighting. Position sizes are expected to reflect factors including conviction, liquidity, capacity, risk and each manager’s contribution to diversification.
Aberdeen will oversee manager selection and investment and operational due diligence, as well as portfolio construction, liquidity management, risk oversight and ongoing monitoring. The firm also plans to monitor potential overlap between managers and assess exposures by underlying risk factors and return drivers.
The multi-manager approach is designed to provide investors with a single route into hedge funds that can otherwise be difficult to access because of capacity constraints or the resources required to establish multiple direct relationships.
Aberdeen currently oversees $18.8bn across active and passive hedge funds and alternative credit, as of June 2026. Its alternatives platform has more than two decades of research experience and more than 20 dedicated professionals, principally based in New York and London.
The firm said it expects the new fund to maintain a relatively stable roster of managers while retaining the flexibility to change allocations as investment opportunities, capacity, liquidity and risk characteristics evolve.
Fees have yet to be finalised, although Aberdeen expects the structure to offer what it describes as cost-efficient access to the underlying managers while incorporating the additional services provided through manager selection, portfolio construction and risk management.
