AQR fund reaches $500-million milestone


AQR Capital Management has pointed to its new offering in Australia - the AQR Global Risk Premium Trust Fund, having reached a milestone.
It said the fund, which it described as an Australian-domiciled registered trust catering to institutional investors, had now attracted over $500 million from Australian institutional clients, including a recently funded allocation from ipac Asset Management Limited.
Commenting on the milestone, AQR principal Jeff Dunn said the fund had been launched in November, last year, to provide Australian investors with direct, liquid and cost-effective access to a strategy AWR had managed since 2006 through offshore vehicles.
"The financial crisis has continued to highlight the need for investors to reduce the reliance on equity dominated portfolios," he said.
"The Global Risk Premium Trust directly addresses this need by delivering efficient access to a highly-diversified portfolio of traditional asset classes, not just equities."
Dunn said the 'risk parity' approach to building portfolios, which underlies the Fund's strategy, was aimed at decreasing the importance of equities and increasing the importance of everything else. That is, make everything matter but nothing matter too much.
"The strategy's live performance through the financial crisis has been very pleasing, clearly demonstrating the value of diversifying away from the traditional equity dominated portfolios," he said.
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