The Pioneer Funds – Multi Asset Real Return Fund is a go-anywhere, global fund that is a mirror of an existing fund run by Michele Garau that was launched in May last year.
Garau will manage the Luxembourg-based offering as lead manager alongside Kenneth Taubes as head of investment management US and Howard Weiss, associate portfolio manager.
The Luxembourg-domiciled fund is registered for sale in France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. Its H-share class has a minimum investment limit of €1m.
The firm hopes to register it in the UK in the coming months but currently does not have the correct investment vehicle in place to allow it to do so.
The aim of the fund is to invest in best-in-class ideas, providing consistent returns as well as offering downside protection across lowly correlated assets.
Garau and his team confirmed that the fund will not constrained by single asset classes to hedge inflation, but can gain exposure to a broad spectrum of traditional financial securities and real assets through closed-ended funds.
“We believe that the flexible, dynamic approach to asset allocation we use in this fund offers an advantage over a more limited inflation-hedging strategy focused largely on TIPS," said Taubes, US chief investment officer.
“What we seek to do is protect purchasing power over the course of an economic cycle by investing in a wide range of asset classes that may have low correlations to each other and to the broader equity and bond markets.”
He added that the fund is deliberately positioned to defend against what he describes as the “eventual rise” in interest rates.
