UK – Barclays Global Investors (BGI) is offering what it terms “a new approach” to asset allocation for institutional investors through a new investment vehicle, the Ascent Asset Allocation (AAA) fund.

The unitised fund, domiciled in Dublin, takes positive and negative positions in 30 different equity, bond and currency markets using BGI’s global asset allocation model.

BGI says the structure of the vehicle will enable pension fund clients to receive the benefits of derivatives based overlay strategies without the administrative difficulties and risks of open-ended losses that typically accompany such approaches.

The fund aims to achieve a 20% per annum outperformance above its benchmark, the seven-day sterling LIBID, with a standard deviation of returns of 25% per annum.
Returns will also be uncorrelated with equity and bond markets.

Matthew Annable , head of active equity strategies at BGI, comments: “By investing a relatively small proportion of their portfolio in the AAA Fund, clients have the potential to obtain exposure to the excess return generated by our active asset allocation investment process in an efficient and transparent manner.”