Axioma, global provider of portfolio optimising and risk modelling tools, will open an Australian office in Sydney over the next few weeks.
The company has hired former Macquarie senior quantitative analyst Scott Hamilton to head the new office.
"Although we already have clients in Australia, we want to embed ourselves more in the quant community here," Axioma Asia and Europe managing director Olivier d'Assier said.
"Australia for us is a great market, because clients are very quant savvy. They have been talking about risk since the banking crisis in the early 80s," he said. "Almost all fund managers have some quant element to their process."
Apart from providing portfolio optimisation and risk modelling software, Axioma also offers in partnership with Russell Investment factor-based indices in the US.
These indices are not based on traditional asset classes, such as large and small caps, but on factors that influence price movements, including liquidity, momentum and volatility.
Russell will go live with exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the back of these indices on 27 May in the US and d'Assier hoped Russell will consider launching these ETFs in Australia as well.
"The Australian clients that I've been speaking with this week know they exist and want access to them," he said.
