Unisuper Mandates Russell on equities

Unisuper has joined the hunt for new sources of alpha, adding fund to its offering.

The $400 million Russell mandate will see the $20 billion UniSuper take up 100 per cent of the Select Holdings fund’s institutional capacity.

Offered as part of UniSuper’s Australian shares portfolio, Russell said the fund is the first of its kind to be offered in Australia, comprising premium domestic stock picks from a number of specialist equity managers selected by Russell.

“The Select Holdings strategy ... harnesses the firm’s global pursuit of specialist strategies that aim to enhance overall portfolio returns in a challenging market environment,” said Russell managing director, institutional investment services, .

According to UniSuper chief investment officer , the new signing is part of a concerted push into new, developing managers and more aggressive investment approaches using strategies such as concentrated portfolios and long-short.

“We are actively structuring the fund to ensure we are well positioned for what we believe will be a tougher environment in which to generate high returns, following the exceptional cyclical gains of the last three years,” he said.

The Select Holdings fund aims to harness additional alpha using the best stock selection criteria of the seven individual fund managers currently managing the Russell Australian Shares Fund (RASF) by investing exclusively in stocks ‘overweighted’ by its managers.

Based on similar concepts in the US and Europe, the Select Holdings concept was launched in April 2006 within Russell’s flagship RASF.