Macquarie Funds Group, the asset management arm of Australia’s Macquarie Group, has gained approval from the the UK regulator, the Financial Services Authority, to distribute three of its UCITS III funds to the UK.

The three funds are the Macquarie Emerging Markets Opportunities Fund, the Macquarie Emerging Markets Infrastructure Fund and the Macquarie and Rogers China Agriculture Fund.

Benchmarked to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the Macquarie Emerging Markets Opportunities Fund is a long only fund utilising an actively managed emerging markets equity strategy; investment decisions are driven by top-down systemic macro analysis combined with bottom-up country and sector allocation, the firm said in a statement.

The lead portfolio manager of the fund is David Dali, a division director and senior portfolio manager within Macquarie Funds Group, who was a founding principal of Globalis Investment, which was acquired by Macquarie last year.

The Macquarie Emerging Markets Infrastructure Fund, which is also long only, combines both bottom-up stock selection with a top-down macro overlay in order to minimise systemic risks. The lead portfolio manager of the fund, which is benchmarked to the MSCI Emerging Markets Infrastructure Sector Capped Index, is Jonathon Ong, a division director and a senior portfolio manager within Macquarie Funds Group.

Lastly, the Macquarie and Rogers China Agriculture Fund gives investors exposure to the Macquarie and Rogers China Agriculture Index, an investable index comprised of agricultural commodities tracked via exchange traded futures on physical commodities. The fund follows a passive investment strategy by tracking the index itself and the exposure to the index is managed by the global Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Asset Management team of Macquarie Funds Group.

“This is an important milestone for Macquarie Funds Group and demonstrates our commitment to the UK intermediary market,” said Duncan Hodnett, associate director – UK Distribution, at Macquarie Funds Group.

“Our aim is to offer regulated funds to the UK intermediary market and thereby provide access to developing investment themes and strategies. The funds will have ‘reporting fund’ status for UK tax purposes and are therefore suitable for UK based private investors, corporate investors and discretionary managers.”