Barclays Launches New Market Neutral European Hedge Fund

Investors Offshore, London

05 November 2002

Barclays Global Investors (BGI), one of the world’s largest investment managers, has announced the launch of a European Equity Market Neutral Fund. The fund, which is aimed at hedge fund of fund providers, institutional investors and family offices, is the second market neutral strategy to be launched by BGI Europe and follows the success of the UK Equity Market Neutral Fund which BGI says returned 12.3% annualised on Fund 1 (ungeared) and 23% annualised on Fund 2 (geared).

The European Equity Market Neutral Fund will be managed using the same disciplined investment process that has seen BGI’s European long-only strategy outperform its benchmark by 2.84% per annum over the past five years. The process is based on a singular investment philosophy that manages risk, cost and return equally. It is this philosophy which underpins both the BGI long only products and hedge fund strategies.

Registered in Dublin and authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland the European Equity Market Neutral Fund aims to deliver a return, after fees, of 10% per year above three month LIBID, maintain a volatility of 10% per year, relative to the benchmark of MSCI Europe and FTA Developed Europe (ex-UK ex-Greece), and produce absolute returns that are independent of movements in the European market

Commenting on the fund launch, Mark Fitzgerald, Director of Hedge Fund Products at BGI said, “We had considerable success with our UK Equity Market Neutral Fund, which has produced excellent performance whilst maintaining volatility within its targeted range and is one of the best performing funds for the given level of risk. So far, during pre-marketing of the European fund, we have seen significant appetite from both existing clients in the UK fund as well as new clients, who missed the opportunity to invest in the UK fund prior to its closure.”

BGI says that the fund will have both a € (euro) and US$ share class, with minimum investment at euros 250,000. The fund will be registered in Dublin, authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland and is a Qualifying Investor Fund.

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