UK – Barclays Global Investors (BGI) has launched the BGI UK Equity Ascent Asset Allocation Fund, which operates by taking positive and negative positions on 30 different equity, bond and currency markets.

The new fund is registered in Dublin and is a pooled vehicle open to institutional investors with a minimum investment equivalent to €250,000. It is traded out of London and benchmarked against the FTSE 100.

The fund aims to achieve :
•a 15% p.a. out-performance above its benchmark
•a standard deviation of active returns of 20% p.a.
•active returns uncorrelated with equity and bond markets

In addition, BGI says that it is designed to act as a foil to the BGI Ascent Asset Allocation (AAA) Fund, which was launched in April and benchmarked against the 7-day LIBID index. Other than benchmarks, the two funds share the same portfolio construction model.

Says Matthew Annable, head of active equity strategies :”The new product is for clients who do not have any portfolio cash, or do not wish to tie up any portfolio cash in an active strategy. Such clients are however likely to have a pool of UK equities, and a part of these could be reallocated to the UK equity market.”