Yellow Brick Road Holdings (ASX:YBR) has today launched its YBR Protected Equities Fund, to give everyday Australians access to sophisticated investment solutions which are usually reserved for high-net-worth individuals and wealthy family funds.
The YBR Protected Equities Fund adds to the suite of existing in-house fixed-income products, including active cash and higher income strategies which has more than $300 million in funds under management.
This portfolio offers a multi-manager approach, allowing investors to diversify across leading wholesale Australian equities managers. This fund aims to deliver returns* that are similar to those of the overall share market whilst cushioning falls and recovering faster.
Yellow Brick Road executive chairman Mark Bouris said: “In this low interest-rate environment and hot property market, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney, people are looking for other investment options. Many are now turning to Australian equities as an alternative, seeking investments with equities’ return on the upside, but reduced volatility and protection in downward markets.”
“The appetite for higher returns while preserving capital is important to mum and dads as well as high-net-worth investors. We sought to understand how wealthy Australians invest and have now made this solution available to everyday Australians.”
Yellow Brick Road selected NWQ Capital Management as its partner to manage the based on their proven track record of returns and approach to capital preservation. As at 30 June 2015, Eurekahedge ranked NWQ as having the highest risk-adjusted return and lowest volatility in the category of Asia Pacific Multi-Manager Strategy Fund-of-Funds.
“We’re teaming up with some of the savviest portfolio managers in the country, typically used by high-net-worth family offices, to provide everyday Australians with lower-risk equities exposure. This is a well thought-out strategy, using proven expertise in understanding, monitoring and managing the mix of strategies to balance risk and return,” Mr Bouris added.
“We designed this fund to be accessible to everyone, with a low initial investment of $10,000, with the added flexibility of daily withdrawal requests and six-monthly distributions paid.”
This fund is tailored to provide investors with diversification through eight to twelve specialist fund managers, each with their own investment approach to build the overall portfolio. Investors are offered exposure to multiple strategies such as traditional long-only equity strategies, extension managers, market neutral managers and variable beta managers, each aiming to outperform in different market conditions.
Each manager employs a range of techniques including derivatives, leverage and short selling to build a robust portfolio. NWQ brings expertise in researching and selecting the mix of underlying managers and investment styles to achieve the fund’s target returns, after fees, of CPI plus 5%-8% p.a. over rolling five-year periods.
The product will initially be available through Yellow Brick Road financial advisers and to the general public who can choose to invest directly through the Yellow Brick Road website.
Source: Yellow Brick Road
