Switzerland’s Union Bancaire Privée is close to launching a $300 million fund of managed accounts, in a bid to attract investors back into its fund of funds business, media reports said.

A spokesperson for UBP declined to comment when contacted by WealthBriefing, saying that the fund had not been registered yet.

UBP has been looking to shake up its business after it was one of the wealth management institutions that were hit by the $65 billion Ponzi scheme fraud of Bernard Madoff.

As the UBP spokesperson put it to this publication: "Challenging market conditions and the contraction of the industry hampered alternative asset management, whose assets stood at $18.8 billion, versus $42.8 billion for the 2008 financial year."

The bank is using its traditional Dinvest FoHF branding for the new fund, to be called the UBP Dinvest Access-30. It is designed to offer investors monthly liquidity and is due to be rolled out in early April, reports said.

In the current climate, the fund industry has seen a number of firms roll out hedge funds or hedge fund “lite” UCITS III products designed to offer relatively high levels of liquidity. During 2008, when hedge funds suffered their worst average performance on record (around -19 per cent), many investors were prevented from mass exits through “gates” and other restrictions on redemptions.

Managed accounts have been a strong area of growth, as they are associated with high levels of liquidity. Among players in this field are Man Group, the UK-listed firm, Deutsche, Goldman Sachs, and Lyxor (part of Société Générale.