BNY Mellon Investment Management has launched the BNY Mellon Absolute Insight Fund, an Irish-domiciled UCITS absolute return fund with daily liquidity. The fund is managed by Insight Investment, a European asset manager.
Working in partnership, BNY Mellon and Insight have developed a new global multi-strategy UCITS fund that invests across a range of absolute return strategies based on the Absolute Insight range and managed by Insight’s equity, fixed income and multi-asset teams. Each of the underlying strategies is actively managed on an absolute return basis targeting a positive return with very low correlation to equity markets.
The BNY Mellon Absolute Insight Fund, which aims to achieve positive returns on a rolling 12-month basis, launches with €90m of client seed money from 6 countries across Europe. It builds on the success of the Absolute Insight range which has total assets in excess of £5 billion and will be distributed throughout Europe by BNY Mellon.
The fund will aim to mirror the holdings of the existing UK domiciled (non-UCITS) Absolute Insight Fund as close as possible, thereby offering the existing capability within a UCITS wrapper. The track record of the existing Absolute Insight capability goes back to 2005. The fund will be offered with retail and institutional share classes denominated in Euro, US Dollar, Sterling and Swiss Francs.
This new fund provides access to Insight’s highly regarded investment teams. With over 25 fund managers in the core Absolute Insight team supported by a 45-strong team of investment analysts, the fund combines the unique characteristics of a highly diversified range of underlying strategies into a single fund. There is also oversight from the Absolute Return Investment Committee of senior Insight investment and risk management professionals whose job it is to ensure that the fund is managed in a way that is consistent with its risk and return objectives.
Matt Oomen, Head of EMEA Intermediary Distribution at BNY Mellon said: “There is a clear and present demand for absolute return products particularly as they give investment managers even greater flexibility to deliver positive returns. Many managers claim to offer absolute return, but in reality few really deliver positive returns on a rolling 12-month basis. Given the proven success of Insight’s absolute return capability and the breadth and depth of its expertise, Insight was ideally placed to work with us in developing the new Fund.”
Abdallah Nauphal, CEO of Insight Investment adds: “Insight was one of the first asset managers to bring institutional quality, processes and governance to absolute return investing. We believe absolute return investment approaches will play an increasingly important role in portfolios. The addition of a multi-strategy UCITS fund to the Absolute Insight range will open this capability to the broadest range of investors in Europe.”
Sonja Uys, portfolio manager and part of the investment team managing the Absolute Insight Fund at Insight Investment, said: “Our strategy has been delivering consistent positive returns since 2005, and has proved to be a stable source of returns in times of crisis, when investors need it most. In an environment where investors are quite rightly seeking quality alternatives to traditional fixed income and equities, a liquid, multi-strategy, absolute return approach could provide an efficient source of returns. The low correlation between the individual strategies makes this an effective portfolio diversifier. It also results in a fund with very low correlation to traditional asset classes or world equities, that has extremely low volatility and hence a much lower risk profile.”