Russell Investments has launched a new fund range that offers wholesale investors access to boutique fund managers on a single manager basis.
The OpenWorld fund range will offer fund picks from all over the world, utilising strategies such as frontier emerging markets, commodities, infrastructure and micro cap.
The fund targets institutional investors and investment professionals such as portfolio managers, advisers and consultants as its client base.
Russell Investments has marked out for this new fund range niche boutique managers who are often unavailable or unknown to a wide investor base, to be accessed by a broader audience through leveraging of its global research operation.
"Being able to take advantage of themes such as climate change, the ascendance of frontier emerging markets and the demand for commodities is becoming more and more important to investors. However, investors often face challenges accessing these types of product," chair of Russell's Asia-Pacific business Alan Schoenheimer said.
"The real specialists in these areas tend to be small, highly-focussed firms with limited capacity or little international presence."
Russell stresses it actively manages the managers on the platform, providing investors with the governance and control required over managers operating in specialist thematic areas.
Managers will be remunerated on a performance fee basis, which Russell says provides clear alignment with client interests.
"Our research shows that these managers can offer a substantial return premium," Schoenheimer said.
He believes investors today like to reflect macroeconomic trends in their investment programs.
In addition, he said large super funds are also continually in search of well-managed, innovative high alpha funds to slot into their established portfolio models. It was these reasons that led to the conception of the OpenWorld fund range.
Russell Investments is a global investment company with $151 billion in assets under management as of 30 June 2009.
Russell has a long history of investing in emerging boutique managers.
"Russell's long institutional heritage gives us a first-mover advantage in identifying new talent as it comes to the market," Schoenheimer said.
