The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has launched what its first Ucits-compliant, event-driven fund in Europe.
Part of the BlackRock Strategic Funds range, the Global Event Driven Fund adds to the firm’s suite of liquid alternative Ucits funds.
The fund is managed by Mark McKenna, global head of event-driven equity at BlackRock, and focuses on investments across a wide spectrum of corporate events, from announced mergers, spin-offs and restructurings, to acquisitions and “collaborative activism”.
It will predominantly invest in equity securities as well as opportunistically across capital structures, making long, synthetic long and synthetic short investments across a diversified set of industries and sectors in developed markets.
Sheryl Needham, managing director of BlackRock alternatives specialists for Europe, says: “Investors are increasingly demanding all-weather investment solutions that provide a different set of returns to equities and bonds, reduce portfolio volatility, and offer downside protection.”
BlackRock has $4.72 trillion (€4.16 trillion) in assets under management and over $114 billion in alternative assets as of August 2015.
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