Standard Life Investments has opened an absolute return portfolio to wider institutional investors.
The portfolio, launched in December 2013 with €110 million of investments from a pool of preliminary investors, uses the same investment platform and risk infrastructure as Standard Life Investments’ Global Absolute Return Strategies – better known as GARS – which has been highly popular among retail investors.
The newer institutional portfolio is called Global Focused Strategies (GFS) and aims for a return of cash +7.5% per annum over rolling three-year periods, regardless of market conditions.
It is expected that this return will be delivered with between 6% to 12% volatility.
GFS is managed by Standard Life Investments’ multi-asset investing team on the same platform that supports GARS and the asset manager’s Absolute Return Global Bond Strategies portfolios.
Guy Stern, head of multi-asset and macro investing at Standard Life Investments, says GFS is an “advanced fusion” of the asset manager’s macro and micro capabilities and benefits from the experience and insights of equity, fixed income, real estate and money market specialists.
The portfolio is a Luxembourg Sicav with share classes in multiple currencies. It has a flat fee of 1.2% per annum, with no performance-related component.
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