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Superfund to increase alliances with Japanese brokerages

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Superfund, the Vienna-based managed futures firm established by Christian Baha in 1995, is planning to increase alliances with Japan’s major securities broke

Superfund, the Vienna-based managed futures firm established by Christian Baha in 1995, is planning to increase alliances with Japan’s major securities brokerages in an attempt to attract more institutional clients reported Bloomberg this week. The firm, whose flagship Superfund Q-AG became the first managed futures fund for private investors when in launched in 1996, rolled out Superfund Blue Japan last July to target Japan’s retail investors. The fund has since raised USD6million in retail assets but Johann Peter Santer, President of Superfund Securities Japan Co., wants to target USD100million over the next 18 months from a wider client base of pension funds and other institutional investors.

Superfund plans to do this by developing relationships with Japan’s major securities brokerage. It is believed that nine smaller brokerages including Aizawa Securities Co., have started distributing the firm’s funds to retail investors. But with Japan’s corporate pension pool in excess of USD730billion, Superfund, amongst others, realizes the huge potential that exists by tapping into Japan’s institutional network. Recently, Hedgeweek reported that US-based hedge fund, AIFAM Inc., was to increase assets in its catastrophe bond fund (the AIFAM ILS Investment Unit Trust I) to USD150million by targeting Japan’s pension funds, whilst global hedge funds like D.E. Shaw are growing their Asia headcount for the same reasons. Superfund’s Baha told Bloomberg: “We were very much retail-oriented in the past, but with Superfund Blue, we are going to open up to institutions in the future,” confirming that the plan marked a shift in the firm’s business strategy. Baha added that Japanese investors were very solid investors for the long term and that Superfund needed to use “the strength of the partners because they already have the assets that are looking be [sic] diversified”. Japan Blue uses a market-neutral strategy, picking stock positions from 2,500 global equities. It returned +7.9 per cent last year.
 

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