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John Hancock launches new fund with Standard Life Investments

31st July 2013 Print

Global Asset Manager, Standard Life Investments has teamed up with John Hancock Investments once again to launch a new fund in the United States.

The new fund - the John Hancock Global Conservative Absolute Return Fund (GCAR) - is placed in the Speciality Fund Morningstar category. Standard Life Investments will provide portfolio management services.  The fund offers an alternative fixed income strategy designed to generate returns in a more turbulent rate environment.

This is the second fund launched by John Hancock with Standard Life Investments as subadviser. In January 2012, the John Hancock Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund launched, and has been one of the fastest-growing funds for John Hancock.

Keith Skeoch, Chief Executive Officer, Standard Life Investments, said: "John Hancock and Standard Life Investments share a common commitment to providing investors with innovative products designed to meet their specific investment needs.  The GCAR fund builds on our many years of experience of working in the multi-asset investing space. We believe that it will appeal to many investors looking to generate absolute returns with lower levels of volatility. The launch of the fund is further evidence of the growing relationship between Standard Life Investments and John Hancock, a relationship that allows us to deliver investment potential to the largest asset management market in the world. We look forward to working with John Hancock to help deliver absolute returns for their clients."

Announcing the new GCAR fund today, Andrew G. Arnott, President & Chief Executive Officer, John Hancock Funds, said: "Our new John Hancock Global Conservative Absolute Return Fund (GCAR) is yet another example of our strategy of providing investors and financial advisors exclusive access to an array of alternative investing strategies managed by premier, institutional-calibre investment management firms.

"Compared with the John Hancock Global Absolute Return Strategy Fund, known as GARS and also managed by Standard Life Investments, the new GCAR fund offers investors the ability to further diversify their portfolios through an absolute return strategy with lower volatility, zero equity exposure, and a more conservative return target.  GCAR may also act as a fixed income substitute for investors who are concerned about rising interest rates and correlation to broad fixed income markets.

"Standard Life Investments is one of the largest managers of Absolute Return Strategies with more than $40 billion under management and over 1,200 institutional clients in this type of product. And the experienced team of Ian Pizer and Roger Sadewsky have been running the GCAR strategy since inception in March 2011."

Ian Pizer and Roger Sadewsky, both Investment Directors in the 32 strong Multi-Asset Investing team at Standard Life Investments, are lead portfolio managers for the John Hancock GCAR fund. Ian is responsible for the generation of interest rate strategies for inclusion across Standard Life Investments' fixed-interest portfolios and for consideration by multi-asset portfolios. He is also chair of the Bond Investment Group. Roger provides research input into the Macro fixed income environment and has a specialist background in credit and credit derivatives. Both are members of the Strategic Investment Group.