Advance Asset Management has seeded two new funds with $200 million each, expanding its suite of multi-strategy alternative funds to 14.
Advance head of investment solutions Patrick Farrell said the Advance Asian Shares Multi-Blend Fund and Advance Cash Multi-Blend Fund were seeded yesterday with money from Advance's $9.5 billion worth of diversified funds.
The new funds take the total number of Advance's sector multi-blend funds to nine. In addition, Advance has five diversified multi-blend funds.
Farrell said the new funds reflected Advance's multi-manager focus.
"This approach reflects best practice implementation and allows us to maximise the expertise of our investment team," he said.
The Asian shares fund is managed by a Hong Kong-based manager from TT International and a Singapore-based manager from Wellington Management.
The cash fund was managed against the UBS Bank Bill Index and was overseen by two fund managers, Farrell said.
In addition, the fund manager opened its Advance Alternative Strategies Multi-Blend Fund, seeded in June with about $400 million, to direct investors and investment platforms.
"The Alternative Strategies Multi-Blend Fund is one where we do really seek to find alternatives to equity markets in that growth asset class space," Farrell said.
"With this alternative strategy, one of the objectives is to manage that downside risk exposure that growth assets are experiencing at the moment.
"It's done an excellent job of really protecting the investor on the extreme downside."
The minimum wholesale initial investment for all funds is $5000.
Advance is a unit of BT Financial Group, which is Westpac's wealth management business.
