HSBC Asset Management’s Jon Rebak has dropped Schroder Global Property Securities from the Open Global Return and Open Global Distribution funds since taking over less than three weeks ago.
Rebak, who became lead manager following Nick Pothier’s departure at the beginning of the month, has replaced the Schroders fund across all but one of the Open portfolios with the newly launched HSBC MultiAlpha Global Real Estate vehicle.
Guy Morrell, who manages the Open Global Property portfolio, still retains the Schroders mandate.
The move by Rebak continues a trend started by Pothier, who remains on board as a consultant having returned to his native South Africa, to replace external funds with MultiAlpha products.
Rebak says using the Luxembourg-domiciled range, run by HSBC Multimanager, is more efficient and cost-effective than accessing funds directly. The MultiAlpha Sterling Bond, Global Equity and Global Aggregate Bond funds are already in use across the Open range.
Within the Global Real Estate vehicle, Rebak has awarded mandates to Urdang Investment Management, European Investors and Aviva Investors to gain exposure to the North American, Asia Pacific and European property markets respectively.
Rebak says he is also considering adding an offshore unit trust in order to diversify his exposure to physical property along with the addition of a timber fund.
He says although there are concerns over custody and asset valuation, timber as an asset class offers the potential for true diversification.
“It is an area we have been talking about for some time, but one of the issues for us has been to understand how sensitive timber funds are to the volatility of timber prices,” Rebak says.
“If you look at the returns of these funds it is clear volatility is not a major driver, so it is something we would be quite interested in.”
