EUROPE – Janus Capital Group says its INTECH arm, which specialises in mathematically based portfolio investing, is set to sign up new European pension fund clients.

“We are seeing a very large amount of interest from European clients for INTECH,” said Janus European director David Schofield. “People are really starting to grasp it now.”

Florida-based INTECH has five European pension fund clients so far across Europe, he said. In December last year the firm won a 250 million-dollar mandate from KLM pension manager Blue Sky Group.

Schofield said there was a “significant pipeline building up” – with new clients “due to fund imminently”, possibly by the end of this month. He declined to name the schemes.

Schofield said INTECH, which was founded in 1987 and became part of Janus in 2003, now has close to a billion dollars under management in Europe – out of a 17.6 billion-dollar total.

INTECH specialises in so-called stochastic portfolio theory and does not run fundamental analysis of stocks. Schofield said: “It flies in the face of much of modern portfolio theory.”

Earlier this week parent firm Janus reported that its total assets under management at the end of September rose 1.9% to 130.2 billion dollars from 127.8 billion dollars at the end of the prior month. INTECH had gross inflows of 1.7 billion dollars, Janus said.

“We’re encouraged by last month’s positive net flows, which reflect the significant contribution of our INTECH subsidiary and the performance of its risk-managed products,” said chairman and chief executive Steve Scheid.

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