European Products
May 2009
Henderson Global Investors has launched
its Global Currency fund, aimed at institutional and pension fund clients.
The fund, managed by a five-strong currency management team, invests across
both G10 and emerging markets, employing a disciplined quantitative investment
strategy and proprietary risk-filters to reduce downside risk. The team
joined from Fortis Bank in January 2009, where they managed EUR 4bn in
pure currency mandates. The company has also launched its Central London
Office Fund II, a seven-year absolute return, closed ended fund, which
aims to capitalise on the cyclical nature of the central London office
market, as well as interesting opportunities arising in the limited capital
market.
KNEIP has launched the Fund MasterFile, an online data
centre for fund managers and fund distributors, which acts as a data and
documentation hub to the investment fund market. Te service provider to
the fund management industry believes the product gives managers ultimate
control over the information made available to them, and offers the flexibility
to choose which data they upload.
A defined contribution service delivery with enhanced platform has been
launched by Prudential UK, which aims to improve delivery
capability and functionality for new and existing clients in the DC market.
The enhanced platform will sit alongside Prudential’s account management
programme, and will produce continued improvements in both quality and
member response times.
Cavendish Asset Management is to launch five new equity
funds, signalling its confidence in the stock markets and want to create
more choice and diversification for new and existing investors. Four of
the five are geographically focused: a European fund, an Asia Pacific
Fund, a North American Fund and a Japan Fund. The last is sector-based,
focusing on Technology.
Property asset management business, F&C REIT,
is looking to raise £300million in commitments from institutional
and high net worth investors to launch a UK real estate opportunity fund,
the Devonshire UK Opportunities Fund. The fund will primarily invest in
UK commercial real estate assets, available via distressed situations
and will be closed-ended and structured as a limited partnership.
Crédit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM) has launched
its Funds Select Europe and Funds Select Euro funds within its Luxembourg-domiciled
international flagship SICAV CAAM Funds. The UCITS III compliant and FSA-recognised
(UK) sub-funds aim to deliver investors outperformance of the MSCI Europe
and the MSCI Euro respectively, using an active, fundamental and bottom-up
process.
Barclays Capital has launched its Global Target Exceed
Index, the latest product from the Exceed platform. The Index aims to
extract alpha from term premium in the short end of the yield curves in
a liquid and transparent way, achieved by trading libor futures contracts.
Investors can also benefit from diversification across four yield curves
– EUR, USD, GBP and JPY.
Old Mutual Asset Managers (UK) (OMAM) has expanded its
offshore fund platform with the planned launch of two new funds, Old Mutual
UK Dynamic Equity Fund and Old Mutual Global Equity Absolute Return Fund,
subject to regulatory approval. The Dynamic Equity Fund is a short extension
fund which aims to outperform in rising and falling markets with a focused
best ideas long portfolio combined with opportunistic short positions.
Luke Kerr will manage this fund.
Neptune Investment Management has launched its US Dollar and Euro share classes across a number of its core funds, and five funds are now available for investment in these currencies to complement the existing GBP share class. Neptune’s US Opportunities fund (Euro and Dollar), Global Equity Fund (Euro and Dollar), European Opportunities Fund (Euro), Japan Opportunities Fund (Dollar) and Asia Pacific Opportunities Fund (Dollar) received these additional share classes to meet the requirements of its clients.
BNY Mellon Asset Management has launched an Emerging Markets Equity Fund. The new fund is a sub-fund of BNY Mellon Global Funds, plc, and Blackfriars Asset Management Ltd will manage it. Tony Hann, head of emerging markets equities at the boutique asset managers, which specialises in emerging markets and global fixed income.
Threadneedle has launched the Threadneedle Credit Opportunities Fund, managed by Barrie Whitman, head of high yield. High yield fund manager Roman Gaiser and investment grade credit fund manager Alasdair Ross will work with Whitman. The fund will be distributed in the UK, and is due for registration for distribution in Europe.
Rowanmoor Pensions has come out of its SSAS provider shell and launched a bespoke Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), offering further options to customers. The SIPP boasts a scheme pension option to offer flexibility and choice at retirement, and can be tailored by IFAs for clients to provide as much investment freedom as possible within scheme rules. High Net Worth and mass affluent individuals are targeted by Rowanmoor, and new business will be accepted from 18 May 2009.
Elysium Capital PLC has launched a fund
which offers investors in Eastern Europe the opportunity to benefit from
steady returns from traded life policies (TLPs) for the first time. The
fund is the first to launch into the region by Elysium, and a new office
has been opened in Prague to build a distribution network throughout Eastern
Europe. The fund targets returns of nine per cent per annum of all charges
through investment in TLPs.
