Barclays Global Investors Australia(BGIA) has launched a new absolute return long-short Australian equity fund to complement its first long-short equity fund released back in 2001.
The BGI Total Return — Absolute Equity Fund, as it will be known, aims to deliver a 9 per cent per annum return above the cash rate with a 6 per cent tracking error.
It will be predominantly targeted at institutional investors, structured product and hedge fund of fund providers.
BGIA’s other fund is its Total Return — Australian Equity Market Neutral Fund.
“While there are some similarities with our existing market neutral strategy, the absolute equity long-short strategy incorporates some complementary ideas for stock selection, as well as targeting additional investor returns from sector and style positioning.
“This strategy has smaller expected capacity — around $100 million — compared to the market neutral long-short strategy launched in 2001,” says BGIA equity investment director Morry Waked.
The fund will aim to achieve a net dollar exposure of zero to equities by taking long and short equity positions and produce absolute returns over time independent of movements in the equity market.
