Palaedino Asset Management, part of the Geneva-based multi-family office Palaedino Group, is introducing a gold share class across it range of UCITS III Axiom products.

The new gold share class will be available across the Axiom funds, including the global equities, global fixed income and global diversified offerings. It will also be available for the recently-launched UCITS Alternative Investable Index Fund.

According to the firm, this provides investors with protection against movements between currencies, and instead gives them exposure to the price of gold as well as the performance of the funds. Investors will subscribe by directly transferring euros, the main currency of most of the firm's clients, which will then be converted into gold and denominated as such thereafter. Palaedino, meanwhile, will buy gold using forward contracts against the base currencies.

“Most gold detractors qualify investment in precious metals as a ‘sterile use of capital’, since the latter pay neither dividends nor interest. A gold class will therefore provide clients with an optimum use of their capital since they will be exposed to financial assets and to the price of gold simultaneously. In this way, gold is upgraded to a ‘quasi-currency’,” said Jerome Berset, senior portfolio manager at Palaedino.

However, gold has rallied strongly over the past year, and some investors now see it as overpriced, while others predict it will continue to perform well due to sovereign debt worries. A spokesperson for Palaedino told WealthBriefing that while it is not "ultra bullish per se" on the precious metal, having exposure to it through its range of funds mitigates some of the short-term volatility by also being exposed to the fund's holdings.