Going for gold

Australia’s growing appetite for gold as a safer and more attractive currency has brought global managed future funds specialist Superfund Group to our shores with the intention of developing a retail presence by the end of the year.

To be launched as SuperAlphaFund Financial in Australia, the company hopes to tap into demand for alternative investments that hedge against falling equity markets, rising inflation, a weakening US dollar and a global tightening of credit.

By trading futures contracts over uncorrelated commodities such as wheat, coffee and crude oil as well as financial futures on currencies, bonds and equity indices, Superfund said it focused on producing gains for investors regardless of market movements.

“Our automated approach to generating absolute returns enables us to observe fear and greed in the market and adopt investment positions accordingly without emotions,” Superfund founder Christian Baha said.

“It could not be better timing for us to expand our product offering to Australia given the strong local appetite for gold as a safer and more attractive currency and the global scaling back of traditional assets in favour of more diversified alternative classes.”

SuperAlphaFund will initially concentrate on high-net-worth investors and institutions looking to expand portfolios using absolute return products, but plans to develop distribution channels to the retail market by the close of 2008.