UK – Pioneer Investments, UniCredito’s fund management arm, is to offer its range of hedge funds to UK institutional investors.

Pioneer has been holding back from the UK hedge fund market place as it saw “greater immediate opportunity elsewhere” and regarded the market as “highly competitive.” Having recently acquired hedge fund of funds business Momentum Asset Management, however, Pioneer now has a UK distribution channel in place through which to sell its products to UK institutional investors.”

Pioneer Investments’ complete range of Luxembourg Sub-Funds and the five Single Strategy Hedge Funds Managed by Pioneer Alternative Investments have now been approved for distribution to UK institutional investors by the Financial Services Authority.

Matteo Perruccio, head of the international division of Pioneer Investments commented: “This is the first of many developments which will demonstrate the synergies between the two businesses which were so appealing to us when we acquired Momentum last year.”

“In the UK, Momentum has the distribution connections and Pioneer Investments has a wide range of investment solutions Momentum previously lacked. In most other parts of the world the reverse is the case and we will exploit those opportunities as quickly as we can.”

Pioneer Investments has over 101 billion euros in assets under management.