SWITZERLAND – UBS Global Asset Management has launched three new multi-manager sub-funds, the BVG range, in the SFr10.9bn (€7.5bn) UBS Foundation, the group’s investment foundation for the assets of its pesnion fund clients.

UBS says it is the first investment foundation in Switzerland to offer pension funds access to the multi-management concept. “The development of the new funds is in response to the industry trend towards manager and investment style diversification,” says a spokesman for UBS .

The new sub-funds - BVG income, BVG growth and BVG maxima - will invest in UBS’s existing four multi-manager funds, which are split by asset class – Swiss denominated bonds, Swiss equities, global bonds, global equities.

UBS’s multi-manager roster includes ABN Amro, Alliance Bernstein, Capital International, Julius Baer, Lombard Odier, Pictet, PIMCO, Rothschild, Vontobel and ZKB.

The UBS Foundation is part of the KGAST collective, the Swiss investment foundation association. In addition to being tax-exempt, KGAST has stricter self-imposed regulations concerning ethics, fund products and general fund supervision which it says allows pension funds greater quality.

A spokesman for Watson Wyatt in Zurich says that the KGAST system is particularly useful for small and medium pension funds that don’t have the same clout or financial security of larger company funds.