RQI Investors, a quantitative equities manager within the First Sentier Investors group, has launched the RQI Australian Diversified Alpha Long Short Fund with a seed investment of $500 million from UniSuper.
The new fund draws on RQI’s core systematic investment process and focuses on ASX 300 companies.
It employs an adaptive leverage approach, with exposure of up to 160 per cent long and 60 per cent short, while maintaining 100 per cent market net exposure, according to RQI.
The fund targets consistent risk-adjusted returns of 4–6 per cent per annum (gross) above the benchmark and is open to institutional and eligible wholesale investors in Australia.
Chief executive of RQI Investors, Andrew Francis, said: “We’re very pleased to launch the RQI Australian Diversified Alpha Long Short Fund, which is a testament to the experience and expertise of our team, and our propriety research and insights that underpin our investment process.
“Further, we are very fortunate to have secured the support and backing of one of Australia’s largest and most sophisticated institutional investors.”
RQI confirmed that the fund is managed by an experienced team, including senior quant portfolio manager and head of portfolio management Joanna Nash, co-portfolio manager Ron Guido, portfolio manager Wang Chun Wei, and head of investments David Walsh.
Using a systematically driven approach, the team leverages AI and machine learning to identify alpha opportunities from a wide range of data sources.
Long and short positions are selected based on fundamental insights, with the fund maintaining full market exposure.
Nash said: “We believe the fund has the ability to deliver strong excess returns with robust risk management through our evidence-based, systematic approach.
“The use of our adaptive leverage long short process allows the exposure of the fund to vary up to 160/60 giving the flexibility to take account of changing market conditions.”
