Select to kick off with duo of funds

Newly launched boutique funds management group Select Asset Management is looking to release two funds as part of its strategy to establish itself as an ‘absolute return’ specialist for Australian investors.

The group, launched this month as a joint venture between the Swiss-based Gottex group and an Australian management team headed by investment consultant Dominic McCormick, will target financial planners with the funds - both directly and through master trusts and wraps.

The funds, a diversified growth and diversified defensive fund, will invest across both traditional and alternative asset classes through a range of absolute return focussed fund managers, as well as make direct investments in listed securities.

McCormick, who has taken up the role of chief investment officer with Select, says the absolute return focus and flexible approach to asset allocation to be taken by the funds will give them a distinct advantage over more traditional funds.

“We are focusing on building absolute return portfolio solutions designed to preserve capital and accumulate wealth over the medium to long term," he says.

"Our philosophy will permit a departure from many of the issues faced by more conventional funds. Their approach leads to short-term performance comparisons which in turn leads to index hugging portfolios. Retail investors do not want to hear that they only lost 15 per cent even if the index lost 20 per cent.”

The group will obtain part of its exposure to alternative fund managers via Gottex’s Market Neutral Funds, a series of global fund of hedge funds.

McCormick says Select will also look to eventually add the Market Neutral Funds to its suit of products on a stand-alone basis.