London’s RWC Partners says it will launch Ucits variants of each new hedge fund it establishes as long as the strategy meets key criteria.
Daniel Mannix, RWC’s head of business development, says: “As long as the hedge fund can be run with the liquidity of Ucits, and can be clearly articulated to a retail audience, then that is what we would do.”
It is a landmark move for a hedge fund and affords access to managers’ long/short skills to retail investors, placing them on a par with institutions.
It is supported by RWC’s experience in launching its Biltmore US hedge fund and US Absolute Alpha funds. Each took in about $320m since inception.
Last week RWC’s Advance Absolute Alpha long/short Ucits fund began trading with about $15m under Priya Kodeeswaran, whom RWC hired from Cheyne Capital in November. The Advance fund has no offshore equivalent.
Mannix says: “It is very important on a five-year view of regulation to offer regulated long/short funds.”
But he adds: “There is huge flexibility allowed under Ucits III, which is an opportunity and a problem.
“It can be a problem for distributors of Ucits products in terms of education, and investors do have to be cautious about approaching Ucits products.”
There are about $35bn of Ucits products run by hedge fund managers, according to data providers Hedge Fund Research.
However, last week, Chuck Clarvit, co-head of BlackRock’s Alternative Advisers fund of funds platform, told RBS’s Alternatively publication: “There is still a limited universe of institutional quality products with a critical mass of capital.”
