Acadian Asset Management has launched an emerging markets equity fund for wholesale investors.
The global systemic manager said the fund, which has CFS as its responsible entity, will give advisers access to a diverse portfolio of 500 emerging market stocks.
Due to improved data coverage and reduced trading costs, the firm said emerging markets have become easier to invest in over the past decade. As a result, Acadian has $39 billion in emerging market strategies within a total $189 billion in assets under management.
Acadian said there is already “strong interest” from large wholesale clients to use the Acadian Enhanced Emerging Markets Equity Fund once it is added to platforms.
Gillian Savage, chief executive of Acadian Australia, said: “We are global specialists in systematic investing and our approach benefits investors over the long term by generating a more consistent return profile, which is a highly valuable attribute in an asset class like emerging markets because it can experience periods of high volatility.
“With a large number of stocks contributing small amounts to the total return over time, the strategy is designed to generate incremental returns above the benchmark while reducing active risk.”
Mark Mukundan, director of wholesale markets, said: “This fund has been designed to be a core emerging market holding, due to its high stock diversity, multifactor approach, and low stock-specific risk profile.
“It could also be a complementary and differentiating feature if positioned alongside higher risk concentrated strategies or a possible replacement for an index allocation, given the fund is actively managed and competitively priced at a management cost of 0.47 per cent which is lower than existing MSCI EM Index replication strategies.”
Last month, Franklin Templeton Australia announced it would be closing its ClearBridge RARE Emerging Market Fund due to its small volume of assets. The managed investment scheme was set up in 2008 but closed on 15 May as it only has $7 million in assets under management.
The fund aimed to hold a diverse range of infrastructure securities across a number of infrastructure subsectors such as gas, electricity and water utilities, renewables, toll roads, airports, rail and communication infrastructure across geographic regions within emerging markets.
“FTAL has considered the current assets under management and the anticipated likelihood of growing the fund’s AUM in the near term and has determined that it is in the best interest of all unitholders to wind up the fund in an orderly manner and return the proceeds to investors.”
