Credit Suisse Asset Management's former Australian equities investment team has opened a boutique firm under the name Sigma Funds Management.
The business, which received its Australian financial services licence (AFSL) to provide managed funds to institutional investors on 21 September, intends to launch a suite of retail funds.
"The fund that we will offer will be an ASX 200 fund and also a small capitalisation fund for wholesale investors," Sigma director Stephen Giubin said.
"We have got ideas for other types of funds, but those two would be the initial product offerings."
CSAM sold its traditional funds management business to Aberdeen Asset Management in April. However, the six-member Australian equities team was not part of the transaction.
Giubin said a transfer of the team to Aberdeen was never discussed.
"Aberdeen has a certain equity investment process, which was different to the investment process that Credit Suisse had. We knew we weren't going to be able to fuse the two together, and let's face it - we have a certain philosophy and investment process and we weren't going to change that either," he said.
"We were operating as a boutique within Credit Suisse, so a logical extension was to take it to the full measure."
Starting a standalone boutique would also ensure the business would not be sold again without the team's agreement, he said.
The newly-formed Sigma team, which is made up of directors Heath Behncke, Issam Eid, Michael Jenneke, Richard Kornman and Rajeev de Silva, briefly considered joining a boutique incubator, though quickly dismissed the idea.
Much thought went into the structure of the business and how the team could avoid some of what they consider shortcomings of the institutional funds management model, Giubin said.
