So how have these hedge fund strategies managed to gain so much traction, within the boundaries of the Targeted Absolute Return Sector?
Ambition and innovation from the fund providers is one thing, though for Gavin Haynes, investment director at Whitechurch Securities, there are other factors at play.
“It is the case that we are seeing greater choice because of the need for the safety checks and daily liquidity of being a regulated investment, but it also comes down to the changing nature of fund buyers,” he explains.
“There is no longer such an emphasis on advisers buying straightforward, fairly simple plain vanilla funds.
“A lot of fund buying is managed now by discretionary managers to whom advisers are outsourcing and, within that space, looking to build portfolios with more sophisticated strategies, running multi-asset portfolios, and looking to diversify into alternative areas alongside traditional asset classes.”
