Iveagh launches Ucits fund of hedge funds

Iveagh Private Investment House, the Guinness family office and asset manager, has launched the Ucits- compliant fund of hedge funds Iveagh Newcits Fund.

The daily-dealing, Dublin-domiciled FoHF offers investors access to a diversified portfolio of Ucits regulated absolute return strategies.

Specialist alternative investment manager 47 Degrees North is acting as a sub-advisor for the fund.

The Iveagh Newcits Fund, which launches with seed capital of $5 million, will focus solely on absolute return strategies using a global, multi-strategy portfolio allocation.

It aims to produce consistent, low volatility performance largely uncorrelated with traditional markets within a highly liquid Ucits structure. The target return will be 6% to 8% a year with a managed volatility of between 3% and 5%.

The fund is managed by Chris Wyllie, who has worked as a senior fund manager at Foreign & Colonial, Shroders and Merrill Lynch, managing funds in both institutional and retail space.

“We are going to be looking at hedge funds across all strategies. These could be equity long short, global macro or credit strategies. We are making sure they meet our investment criteria and Ucits III," said Wyllie.

“The managers we want will have a decent track record. They should have experience in offshore vehicles. We don’t want people who are just using Ucits III as a way to get around EU legislation,” added Wyllie.

The fund will be marketed to European institutional investors.

Iveagh has experience of Ucits investments through its Iveagh Wealth Fund portfolio, says Wyllie. This was established in September 2008 and has delivered consistent returns. He said this gave the FoHF an edge as “most people are starting from scratch with Ucits.”

“We know where things go wrong. We have to ensure that people deliver the returns without excess leverage and that they are meeting liquidity requirements through the cycle,” Wyllie said.

Minimum investment for the fund is set at £50,000. The annual management charge is 1.5% and the performance fee is 10% over a hurdle rate. The custodian is Brown Brothers Harriman.