Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Investment Management |
Founded | 1999 |
Founder | |
Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Key people | Duncan Wilkinson (CEO) |
AUM | US$10.9 billion (Q3 2022) |
Number of employees | 44 (2022) |
Parent |
|
Website | www |
Footnotes /references [1] |
AlphaSimplex Group (AlphaSimplex) is an American investment management firm based in Boston. The firm relies on quantitative analysis for its approach to investing. [2] [3] [4]
On October 20, 2022, it was announced that Natixis Investment Managers would sell AlphaSimplex to Virtus Investment Partners. [5] [6] The acquisition completed in April 2023. [7]
AlphaSimplex was founded in 1999 by Andrew Lo. [3] [8] [9] Lo is a professor of Finance at MIT Sloan School of Management. [8] [9] [10] [11] He was chairman and Chief Investment Strategist of the firm until 2018 when he transitioned to his current role as chairman emeritus and Senior advisor. [11] [12] [13]
In 2007, Natixis Investment Managers acquired AlphaSimplex. [8] [12] In the same year, AlphaSimplex and Credit Suisse launched the first 130–30 fund index. [14]
The firm's most notable funds are its Managed Futures Strategy Fund launched in 2010 and its Global Alternatives Fund launched in 2008. [2] [3] [4] [9] [15] Its Managed Futures Strategy Fund uses a quantitative approach to trend following. [2] [4] [9] [11] [15] Its Global Alternatives Fund is a mutual fund that provides the strategies and properties of hedge funds to average investors who otherwise would not be able to invest in hedge funds due their strict investor requirements. [3] [11] The firm also had a Liquid alternative fund called Diversifying Strategies Fund that was launched in 2009 but closed in 2013 due to poor returns. [16]
The firm is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a commodity pool operator (CPO) and commodity trading advisor (CTA). [15] [17] Since 2010, flat fee trend following has been its flagship CTA strategy. [15]
From 2022 to 2023, AlphaSimplex made a two-year short bet against US Bonds. Its public mutual fund had a 36% return in 2022 due to the bond market rout that year but had a 10% loss in 2023 when the bond market rebounded towards end of the year. [18]
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund that is also an exchange-traded product, i.e., it is traded on stock exchanges. ETFs own financial assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, debts, futures contracts, and/or commodities such as gold bars. Many ETFs provide some level of diversification compared to owning an individual stock.
Bridgewater Associates, LP is an American investment management firm founded by Ray Dalio in 1975. The firm serves institutional clients including pension funds, endowments, foundations, foreign governments, and central banks. As of 2022, Bridgewater has posted the second highest gains of any hedge fund since its inception in 1975. The firm began as an institutional investment advisory service, graduated to institutional investing, and pioneered the risk parity investment approach in 1996.
Portable alpha is an investment strategy in which portfolio managers separate alpha from beta by investing in securities that are not in the market index from which their beta is derived. Alpha is the return on investment achieved over and above the market return—beta—without taking on more risk. In simple terms, portable alpha is a strategy that involves investing in areas that have little to no correlation with the market.
Man Group plc is an active investment management business listed on the London Stock Exchange. It provides investment funds in liquid and private markets for institutional and private investors. It is the world's largest publicly traded hedge fund company, reporting $178.2 billion in funds under management as of June 2024. The firm is headquartered at Riverbank House in London and employs over 1,800 people in various locations. The company was a sponsor of the Man Booker Prize from 2002 to 2019.
Liongate Capital Management was a global investment management firm, focused on creating and managing fund of hedge fund investments for institutional and private investors. Liongate, founded in 2003 by Ben Funk,PhD, Jeff Holland and Randall Dillard, managed a range of funds of hedge funds, and some bespoke multi-strategy funds, in both commingled funds and tailored, single client portfolios. The initial framework of the investment strategy was in part based on Dr. Ben Funk's proprietary dataset - International Hedge Fund Research Institute (IHFRC) - and PhD dissertation that demonstrated intangible (tacit) knowledge could be analysed with structural equation modelling to help forecast alternative asset performance with a somewhat high degree of certainty. This unique outlook, alongside Liongate's well known more fluid reallocation of capital to hedge fund strategies relative to its competitors, provided Liongate a compelling unique and sustainable advantage which helps explain its rapid growth despite entering the market in an already mature stage.
Raymond Thomas Dalio is an American investor and hedge fund manager, who has served as co-chief investment officer of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, since 1985. He founded Bridgewater in 1975 in New York.
Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. is an American company which operates as a multi-manager asset management business, comprising a number of individual affiliated managers, each having its own investment process and brand, and the services of unaffiliated sub advisers.
Brevan Howard is a European hedge fund management company based in Jersey with its funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands. Brevan Howard was founded in 2002 by Alan Howard, alongside four other co-founders including Chris Rokos, and is widely considered to be one of the top global macro hedge funds.
Marathon Asset Management,LP is an investment manager focused on opportunistic investing in credit and fixed income markets globally. Marathon manages a family of investment programs principally focused on credit strategies including hedge funds, managed accounts, single-client funds and collateralized loan, and debt obligation vehicles.
Global X ETFs is a New York-based provider of exchange-traded funds that facilitates access to investment opportunities across the global markets. Founded in 2008, it has approximately $40 billion in managed assets, across more than 80 different products. The ETF issuer and manager is widely known for its Thematic Growth, Income and International product suites, in addition to its Core, Commodities and Alpha strategies. In July 2018, the company was acquired by Mirae Asset Global Investments.
Winton Group, Ltd is a British investment management firm founded by David Harding. In the United States, Winton is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment advisor and with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a CTA, and is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. The company trades on more than 100 global futures markets in a wide variety of asset classes and on global equity markets. The firm was launched with $1.6 million in 1997, reached a peak of $28.5 billion in assets under advisement, before dropping to $7.3 billion by late 2020. Winton Group has six offices around the world: London, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, and Abu Dhabi.
A Commodity pool operator (CPO) is an individual or organization that solicits or receives funds to use in the operation of a commodity pool, syndicate, investment trust, or other similar fund, specifically for trading in commodity interests. Such interests include commodity futures, swaps, options and/or leverage transactions. A commodity pool may refer to funds that trade in commodities and can include hedge funds. A CPO may make trading decisions for a fund or the fund can be managed by one or more independent commodity trading advisors. The definition of CPO may apply to investment advisors for hedge funds and private funds including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in certain cases. CPOs are generally regulated by the United States federal government through the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and National Futures Association.
A commodity trading advisor (CTA) is US financial regulatory term for an individual or organization who is retained by a fund or individual client to provide advice and services related to trading in futures contracts, commodity options and/or swaps. They are responsible for the trading within managed futures accounts. The definition of CTA may also apply to investment advisors for hedge funds and private funds including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in certain cases. CTAs are generally regulated by the United States federal government through registration with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and membership of the National Futures Association (NFA).
A managed futures account (MFA) or managed futures fund (MFF) is a type of alternative investment in the US in which trading in the futures markets is managed by another person or entity, rather than the fund's owner. Managed futures accounts include, but are not limited to, commodity pools. These funds are operated by commodity trading advisors (CTAs) or commodity pool operators (CPOs), who are generally regulated in the United States by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the National Futures Association. As of June 2016, the assets under management held by managed futures accounts totaled $340 billion.
Quality Capital Management Ltd is a UK-based hedge fund specialising in managed futures. The company was founded by Aref Karim in 1995 and its headquarters is in Weybridge, Elmbridge, Surrey, England.
Aspect Capital is a London-based investment manager that applies a systematic and quantitative approach to investment management. According to the Financial Times, Aspect uses "technology and complex mathematical models to power computers that trade the world's markets around the clock". Aspect manages USD6.6bn.
Geode Capital Management, LLC (Geode) is an American investment management firm based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Graham Capital Management is an American investment management firm headquartered in Rowayton, Connecticut. The firm has a focus on global macro and trend-following investing. It has additional offices in Florida and London.
Garda Capital Partners (Garda) is an American investment management firm based in Wayzata, Minnesota that focuses on investments in fixed income securities. The firm originated from Black River Asset Management, an investment management unit of Cargill.
Mirova is a global asset management company dedicated to sustainable investment and an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers. As of September 30, 2023, Mirova and its affiliates manage €28.4 billion. The company is a mission-driven company, labeled B Corp.