F&C Zircon Fund finishes first year with strong returns

F&C Zircon Fund has managed to deliver strong returns during its first year of trading, despite the tough market environment.

Since its launch on January 14 2008 until the end of last year, the portfolio returned 19.07% with an annualised daily volatility of 10.26%.

F&C Zircon, managed by F&C Alternative Investments, the single strategy hedge fund division of F&C, is an absolute return trading strategy that aims to capture dispersion between same sector pairs of stocks within a Pan European Equity universe. The portfolio is managed by Darren Jordan and Phil Robinson who have worked together for over 10 years. Their philosophy is to capture excessive and unwarranted short term dispersion between same sector pairs of stocks in Pan European equity markets within an efficient and diversified portfolio context.

Co-manager Phil Robinson commented: "We are most pleased with meeting our volatility target in a year where index volatility hit record and prolonged levels. This validates our approach to risk and has reinforced our view that the amount of risk employed is key to the success of any strategy. Our vanilla approach to liquid asset class trading is well suited to weather any further and unexpected market storms." The F&C Zircon Fund, which has a minimum investment level of €500,000, has both Euro and US dollar share classes and is being targeted primarily at institutional investors including funds of hedge funds. The Fund is domiciled in the Cayman Islands with a listing on the Irish Stock Exchange.