Global absolute return strategies fund breaks £500m

Standard Life Investments, a leading provider of multi-asset solutions, has announced that its Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund (GARS) has broken the £500m barrier in assets under management since its launch in June 2006.

With total assets standing at over £609m, the Fund has attracted more than £255m of new investment in 2008 alone. Clients include the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Superannuation Scheme, Dollond & Aitchison Pension & Life Assurance Scheme and the Electrocomponents Group Pension Scheme.

From its launch in June 2006, SLI's Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund has delivered an annualised return of 7.3% with very low levels of volatility despite turmoil throughout global markets.

The Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund seeks to provide investors with consistent, positive investment returns over the medium to long term in a variety of market conditions. The benchmark for the Fund is UK six month sterling LIBOR1 and the Fund aims to out perform by an additional 5% per annum gross of fees, over a rolling three-year period.

The GARS Fund is designed to exploit inefficiencies across markets and to maximise risk-adjusted returns from across the globe. It invests in a combination of traditional investments such as equities, bonds and foreign exchange and also applies advanced techniques such as relative value, duration, credit spreads, inflation and volatility strategies.

In May 2008, SLI also made its GARS Fund available to retail investors in the UK. The Fund has already attracted more than £40m in retails assets and in July was ranked among the top 50 selling funds on both Co-Funds and FundsNetwork platforms.

Louise Kay, Head of UK Institutional Business Development, Standard Life Investments, said:

"Clients have clearly found the attractive performance and low volatility of our GARS fund a reassuring choice during a period of high market volatility and uncertainty in many asset classes.

"The key to GARS success has been a diverse array of traditional and advanced market strategies expertly blended by our Multi-Asset Investing Team. As well as traditional assets like equities and bonds, they have scoured global markets for diversifying opportunities, deploying credit protection and volatility strategies that paid off when credit markets hit the rocks in the autumn of 2007 and fears of a global slowdown shook equity markets.

"The success of our GARS Fund, coupled with an increased fund choice for Liability Driven Investment investors, means we continue to move towards our goal of being the multi-asset provider of choice for the UK investment community."