Austrian hedge fund manager Vienna Portfolio Management plans to launch a systematic hedge fund, which will invest in six equity index futures. The fund is UCITS III-compliant, which means it can be sold to retail investors in Austria. The fund is due to launch on Feb. 1.
"The main driver was to launch a fund with very little correlation with products already in the market," said Carl Grevelius, director at VPM's Zurich-based subsidiary Absolute Plus. The fund will have daily liquidity and high levels of transparency, in line with Austrian regulation, he added. It will carry a 2% management fee and a 20% performance fee with a high-water mark.
The fund will open to initial subscriptions on Jan. 17 and is expected to launch with over EUR10 million. "The capacity is unlimited as we see it, [because] the liquidity in these [underlying] equity index futures is very high," he noted. The prime broker will be JPMorgan.
