Northern Trust Asset Management has launched a new fund for institutional investors that encompasses quality small capitalization stocks across global developed equity markets.
The global small cap fund builds on Northern Trust Asset Management’s growing Engineered Equity strategies, with a US$37.4 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2014. The fund, launched this month with an investment by Kemper Corporation for its Master Retirement Trust, is designed to efficiently capture the premium associated with high quality small capitalization stocks while minimizing uncompensated risk factors.
“Our Engineered Equity approach provides efficient exposure to global small cap equities with a bias toward high-quality companies and factors that generate persistent performance over time,” said Matthew Peron, Managing Director, Global Equity at Northern Trust Asset Management. “We worked closely with Kemper to develop a solution that fits their performance and risk budget needs, leveraging our core capabilities, and we believe this strategy will have broad appeal.”
The global small cap fund is an extension of Northern Trust’s factor-based U.S. small cap strategies, which have a 15-year track record and US$3.4 billion in AUM as of September 30, 2014. The new collective trust fund is available to U.S. defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans and Northern Trust intends to offer the global small cap strategy to a range of investors through separate accounts and other fund structures.