The latest news in investment offerings, financial products and other services relative to wealth advisors and their clients.

GAM, Arcus
Investment firm GAM, part of Zurich-listed GAM Holdings, has agreed with Arcus Investment Ltd to distribute The Arcus Zensen Fund, a hedge fund strategy focused on Japanese equities, which takes a long/short technique to manage returns.

 Zensen has been managed by its Arcus co-founder Mark Pearson for more than 20 years.

“This exciting new collaboration between GAM and Arcus will continue to expand GAM’s Alternatives product offerings and significantly enhance GAM's Japan-focused investing capabilities for clients,” Elmar Zumbuehl, GAM’s group CEO, said.

Arcus Investment Ltd, founded in 1998, has offices in London, Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur. As of 14 November, it oversaw about $2.3 billion across a mix of long-only and long/short strategies. 

“Since its inception in late 2001, our proprietary quantitative analysis allied with a rigorous fundamental research process and Mark Pearson’s portfolio management prowess has allowed the fund to deliver compelling returns. With GAM’s assistance, we hope to introduce it to more institutional investors around the world,” Edward Cartwright, CEO of Arcus, said. 

BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas Global Markets’ THEAM Quant Strategies and BNP Paribas Exane Research have launched a fund that taps into the theme of “healthy living,” through diet, exercise and lifestyle, for example. 

The new offering is called the THEAM Quant – Healthy Living Opportunities fund. The HLO entity tackles the area by splitting it into four areas: active lifestyle, comfort and wellbeing, diagnostics and cure, and healthy food.

The investment process incorporates quantitative criteria with the aim of enhancing the fund’s risk-return profile. It also weeds out companies that participate in intensive carbon-generating or disputable activities, in breach of the UN Global Compact guidelines, involved in any severe ESG controversies, or which otherwise have weak financial fundamentals, BNP Paribas said in a statement yesterday. 

The fund’s global allocation universe covers liquid companies across three main regions – Europe, North America, and Asia. These stocks are weighted through a quantitative optimisation process and rebalanced quarterly.