Henderson Global Investors has grown its hedge fund assets to $3 billion, up more than 50% since the beginning of 2006. This year also marked an important move by Henderson to capitalise on the successful growth of its hedge fund business in Europe by expanding into North America with the appointment of a senior business development executive in New York in May.
In the last 12 months, Henderson has launched 3 new hedge funds, the European Style Rotational Long Short Fund, the Global Currency Absolute Return Fund and the Global Equity Multi-Strategy Fund.
The launch of the European Style Rotational Fund, launched in November last year, marked the addition of a new pillar of expertise to Henderson's hedge fund business. The fund seeks to capture alpha from a proprietary quant driven investment process which exploits the inefficiencies of style investing in a systematic way and profits from trend reversals and rapid style shifts.
The Global Equity Multi-Strategy Fund, launched last month, complements existing regional Multi- Strategy Funds operating in Europe and North America. Both of these funds have generated annualised returns of around 8 per cent. This range of regional funds will be completed by the rollout of the Asia- Pacific Equity Multi-Strategy Fund later this year.
In February this year, Henderson's flagship Global Fixed Income Absolute Return Fund reached its third year anniversary, delivering annualised returns of 7.4%, having consistently outpaced its peer group in each of the three one year periods. The fund draws on the ideas generated by over 50 fixed income professionals at Henderson managing over $50 billion (£32.1 billion)* in global fixed income assets at both micro and macro levels. Since February, the fund's assets under management have more than tripled to $485 million.
Commenting on the growth of Henderson's hedge fund business, Kate O'Neill, Director of Hedge Funds, said, "The tremendous growth in our hedge fund assets this year alone is a significant milestone for us as we continue to expand our range of hedge fund products. The launch of our twelfth hedge fund this year reflects a successful strategy of capitalising on existing capabilities where we are confident we can bring to market truly top class hedge funds for clients. Our recently launched equity style rotational strategy, to take one example, has generated a high level of interest given its innovative investment process. "We are committed to developing new strategies and expanding our geographical reach in core markets like North America to cater for the growing demand from institutional investors for more diversified and flexible alpha vehicles."
Source: Henderson
