Tag Archives: mutual funds

Rothschild Continues To Build Team, Multi-Strategy Fund In Top Decile

By DailyAlts Staff In a flurry of recent activity, Rothschild Asset Management has expanded its presence in the alternative investments business. A pair of hirings since July 21 have bolstered the firm’s capabilities in both the institutional and retail markets, and Rothschild recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of the alternative mutual fund it co-runs with Larch Lane . These moves come on the heels of CEO Michael Woods’s March appointment, and the April hiring ( announced in January ) of Shakil Riaz as Global CIO and Head of U.S. Alternative Portfolio Management. Fund Anniversary The $61 million Rothschild Larch Lane Alternatives Fund (MUTF: RLLIX ) celebrated its one-year anniversary on July 27, outperforming the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, the MSCI World TR Index, and Morningstar’s Multialternative category in its first year. Through July 31, the fund’s Institutional share class had one-year returns of 7.09%, which ranked in the top 9% of funds in its category. The fund, which is the product of a joint venture between Rothschild and Larch Lane, is designed to perform well under a variety of market conditions, and to have limited correlation to the broad stock and bond markets. Both Rothschild and Larch Lane have decades-long track records managing hedge-fund portfolios, and the Rothschild Larch Lane Alternatives Fund offers a “proven capacity to source and allocate to emerging hedge fund managers and liquid strategies,” according to a statement issued by Rothschild. The fund currently uses four managers to sub-advise the fund, each implementing a different strategy: Ellington Management Group, L.L.C – Relative Value / Tactical Trading Karya Capital Management LP – Discretionary Global Macro Mizuho Alternative Investments, LLC – Systematic CTA Winton Capital US LLC – Equity Trading “As investors turn to non-traditional strategies to generate returns in varying market environments, the Rothschild Larch Lane Alternatives Fund is proving to be a compelling option,” said Larch Lane COO David Katz in a recent statement. “By utilizing a multi-manager structure that offers diversification across a variety of asset classes, trading time frames, investment styles and strategies, the Fund has a broad opportunity set from which to potentially profit.” Recent Hirings Rothschild’s presence in the alternatives space has been expanding at an accelerating rate. On July 21, the firm announced the hiring of Joseph Gill, formerly of Pentegra Retirement Services, to join the firm’s institutional sales team; and on August 3, Brinker Capital’s Jennifer Kulp joined Rothschild’s retail distribution team. With recent hirings in both the institutional and retail spaces, Rothschild is demonstrating an across-the-board commitment to the emergence of alternative strategies. Commenting on the pair, Rothschild’s CEO Michael Woods said: “Joseph brings over 20 years of institutional sales and relationship management experience in both traditional and alternative investment management to the firm. He will be instrumental in continuing Rothschild’s consistent presence and long-standing relationships with institutional clients;” and “Jennifer’s addition to the firm will help to further deepen our expertise, broaden our reach across the retail marketplace, and widen distribution channels, which is integral to our growth strategy for North America. I am certain Jennifer’s experience and longstanding client relationships will add immediate value to our retail team.” Mr. Gill will play a “key role” in within Rothschild’s New York-based institutional sales team. Previously, he was with BlackRock, Blackstone, JPMorgan, and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, in addition to co-founding Thane Capital. In her newly created position, Ms. Kulp will be responsible for leading Rothschild’s retail distribution strategy and working with distribution channels to help financial advisors achieve their goals. Her prior experience includes a 20-year stint with Brinker Capital, where she was most recently a Managing Director in the firm’s Wealth Advisory Sales group. “I am excited to join Rothschild at a time when the firm is expanding its retail presence and increasing its retail client coverage in the region, and I look forward to contributing to its continued success,” said Ms. Kulp.

Franklin Templeton Launches Flexible Alpha Bond Fund

By DailyAlts Staff Market pundits are nearly unanimous in their assessment that bonds are unlikely to deliver returns in the future that fixed-income investors became accustomed to in the past. For some, this means getting out of fixed income altogether – for others, a “flexible” approach holds promise. Investors in the latter camp have a new option as of August 3: the Franklin Flexible Alpha Bond Fund (MUTF: FABFX ). The new fund, which is managed by Franklin Templeton Investments, is designed to provide attractive risk-adjusted total returns over a full market cycle. The fund’s managers pursue this end by means of allocating the fund’s portfolio across a broad range of global fixed income sectors and risks, such as credit, currency, and duration. In pursuing this strategy, the fund’s managers have the flexibility to capitalize on opportunities across national borders, market sectors, credit grades, and bond maturities and durations, without reference to a benchmark index. “Given the recent concerns with respect to rising interest rates and the related desire for additional diversification in the fixed income markets, we believe Franklin Flexible Alpha Bond Fund should fulfill investors’ rapidly growing demands for an alternative to traditional core fixed income allocations,” said Michael Materasso, co-lead manager of the fund and senior VP of the Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Policy Committee. In a recent statement, Mr. Materasso also noted the fund’s diversification benefits: “The fund seeks to complement traditional fixed income asset classes by potentially providing low correlation to conventional holdings.” Mr. Materasso manages the Franklin Flexible Alpha Bond Fund alongside fellow co-manager David Yuen. Together, the pair employ their 68 years of combined industry experience in a “top down” analysis of macroeconomic trends and a “bottom up” fundamental analysis of individual opportunities. Positions may be held long or short to navigate market cycles and tactically manage risks from interest rate, credit, currency and country exposures. “We take an unconstrained investment approach with dynamic sector rotation, active currency management, security selection and relative value positioning, while aiming to manage various risks, such as duration,” said Mr. Yuen. Under normal circumstances, at least 80% of the fund’s net assets will be invested in bonds and other instruments that provide exposure to bonds. The fund’s weighted average portfolio duration may range from -2 to +5 years. Shares of the fund are available in A (FABFX), C (MUTF: FABDX ), R (MUTF: FABMX ), R6 (MUTF: FABNX ), and Advisor (MUTF: FZBAX ) classes, with net expense ratios ranging from a low of 0.71% for R6 shares to a high of 1.50% for C-class shares. For more information, download a pdf copy of the fund’s prospectus .

Mutual Fund Investors Take Wait-And-See Approach Ahead Of FOMC Meeting

By Tom Roseen Despite the flight to safety and what many market pundits might have expected-a subsequent uptick in flows to money market funds, for the second week in three investors were net redeemers of fund assets (including those of conventional funds and exchange-traded funds [ETFs]), withdrawing a net $6.2 billion for the fund-flows week ended, Wednesday, July 29. Investors pulled money out of all four of Lipper’s major macro-groups, redeeming $3.5 billion from taxable bond funds, $1.8 billion from equity funds, $0.9 billion from money market funds, and $73 million from municipal bond funds. Weak earnings reports from bellwether stocks such as American Express (NYSE: AXP ), Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT ), and 3M (NYSE: MMM ), accompanied by a hangover from China’s market meltdown, outweighed a drop in weekly applications for unemployment benefits to the lowest level since 1973. Investors shrugged off a better-than-expected earnings report from Amazon and ignored the Anthem (NYSE: ANTM )-Cigna (NYSE: CI ) M&A news and the announcement that Greek officials had approved a second set of austerity measures. Instead, investors focused on the continued decline in oil, the selloff in commodities, concerns over a decline in global economic growth, and a housing report that showed the largest slowdown in single-family-home sales in seven months. Ho-hum economic data and sketchy guidance from U.S. firms during the flows week initially led investors to safe-haven plays, especially after the Shanghai Composite’s largest one-day slide (-8.5%) since February 2007. Despite a better-than-expected June durable goods report, investors took a wait-and-see approach ahead of the two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting, leading to a small rally in U.S. Treasuries. However, in the last two days of the flows week U.S. stocks rallied after China stocks showed a more tempered decline and oil prices rose for the first time in five sessions. On Wednesday, July 29, the Dow marked its fifth straight session of triple-digit moves, this time to the upside after the Federal Reserve left itself wiggle room to raise rates as early as September, citing a continuation of solid gains in the job market. Investors cheered Citrix’s better-than-expected earnings report, Chinese stocks moved higher, and crude oil had its second biggest one-day gain for July, with futures rising 1.7% for the day. Nonetheless, the Dow Jones Industrial Daily Reinvested Average still finished the flows week down 0.56%. (click to enlarge) Source: Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company Interestingly, fund investors collectively kept their foot on the gas pedal for a few risk-on plays, injecting net new money into international equity funds (+$0.9 billion), health/biotechnology funds (+$0.6 billion), mid-cap funds (+$0.2 billion), and science & technology funds (+$0.1 billion). Except for small net flows into government/Treasury funds (+$0.4 billion) during the week, the typical safe-haven plays didn’t attract net new money as investors appeared to be waiting on the policy statement by the Fed to plan their next steps. Year to date, international equity funds (including traditional funds and ETFs) have attracted $135.1 billion of net new money, while their domestic equity counterparts have suffered net redemptions to the tune of $54.7 billion.