Man Group has expanded its range of quantitative investment vehicles with the launch of two UCITS-compliant equity funds managed by Man Numeric, the Boston-based quantitative manager acquired by Man Group in September 2014.
Domiciled in Dublin, the Man Numeric Market Neutral Alternative fund and the Man Numeric Emerging Markets Equity fund are the first UCITS vehicles to be offered to the European market by the US fund manager, which has $16.7bn of assets under management (as of 31 December 2014).
The Man Numeric Market Neutral Alternative fund offers investors exposure to one of Man Numeric’s core strategies, the Numeric Alternative Market Neutral Strategy , which launched in 2001. The highly liquid strategy aims to provide consistent, low volatility performance uncorrelated to market indices and other quantitative vehicles.
Overseen by Man Numeric’s co-heads of hedge fund strategies Greg Bond and Daniel Taylor, the strategy uses a variety of models to deliver returns, broadly combining its value driven bottom-up stock selection process with a fundamental statistical arbitrage model. Using long and short strategies to express their views, the investment team seeks unique sources of alpha from a universe of more than 9,000 stocks globally, with holding periods ranging from around four weeks to a year.
Portfolio risk is carefully monitored and spread across the range of different investment strategies, with the strategy having delivered consistent performance over the long term with low volatility.
The Man Numeric Emerging Markets Equity fund is based on the Numeric Emerging Markets Core Strategy, which launched in June 2013. Aiming to outperform the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the strategy is managed with a focus on quantitative, bottom-up stock selection via a systematic and disciplined process.
Attractive stocks are identified using two primary selection criteria – valuation and information flow – with a range of models within these groups identifying pockets of market inefficiency. Portfolio construction and risk management attempt to maximise alpha while minimising exposure to economic risk.
Portfolio managers Ori Ben-Akiva, Greg Bunimovich and Mickael Nouvellon provide oversight by evaluating all trades for data accuracy, as well as news flow and special circumstances.
The Man Numeric Emerging Markets Equity fund has been passported across Europe, while the Man Numeric Market Neutral Alternative fund is currently pending approval in nine countries including Switzerland, Austria and Germany.
Michael Even, President and CEO of Man Numeric said: “We are delighted to launch these UCITS-compliant funds, offering investors in the European market access to two of our core alpha-generating strategies for the first time. These launches have been made possible by becoming part of Man Group, enabling us to leverage the firm’s resources and expertise to reach an investor base we would not otherwise have been able to.”
Man Group acquired Numeric in September 2014, and together with Man AHL this created a diversified, global quantitative investment platform which offers clients a broad product range across alternative and long-only, trend following, technical and fundamental strategies.
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