Trust in alternatives

Mark Thomas

Aurora Funds Management has teamed up with van Eyk for the launch of the van Eyk Blueprint Alternatives Plus trust.

Available to Aurora investors, the trust will feed into the van Eyk Blueprint Alternative Fund, which is one of six multi-manager options available.

It will serve as the primary means for Blueprint investments to access alternative assets including hedge funds, global macro funds, alternative yield funds, commodities and gold.

Aurora is the responsible entity of the trust and has appointed van Eyk as the investment manager, which has $1.3 billion of funds under management across the Blueprint funds.

The trust offers daily pricing liquidity, an off-market monthly redemption facility and is expected to deliver moderate income and capital growth, low correlation with traditional share and bond markets, volatility levels similar to a balanced portfolio and a conservative level of internal gearing.

Mark Thomas, director at van Eyk, said the trust could act as a defence mechanism in times of market volatility.

“The strong run that equities have seen over recent years may not last, so this may be an opportune time for financial advisers to look at alternatives for their investor clients,” he said.

“Put simply, diversified alternative strategies are defensive, can produce income and are lowly correlated with growth assets in times of market stress.”

The trust opened on October 2 and Aurora has already received an application commitment for $20 million, which exceeds the minimum offer size for the fund.