TOBAM launches Anti-Benchmark Pacific ex-Japan Fund

Paris, June 7, 2012 – The asset manager TOBAM today announced that it has launched the Anti-Benchmark Pacific ex-Japan Equity fund (UCITS IV). The fund has been launched with seed funding from Seven Investment Management.

The Anti-Benchmark Pacific ex-Japan Fund seeks to  maximize diversification across the investment universe, as represented by the MSCI Pacific ex-Japan Index, by applying TOBAM’s patented maximum diversification approach. By maximizing diversification across the Pacific ex-Japan region – an investment universe with numerous and complex geographical, political, sector and other risk factors – the fund aims to deliver the full equity risk premium to investors. The fund aims to outperform the MSCI Pacific ex-Japan equity cap-weighted benchmark by 4-6% per annum over a market cycle, while at the same time delivering significantly less volatility (typically 30%). This fund applies a one-step optimization to maximize diversification at the global level, bypassing the sector, country and style biases that more traditional allocation methods such as market-cap weighting can lead to.

“We are very excited to extend our relationship with TOBAM. The Anti-Benchmark approach risk/return profile is particularly attractive and relevant for our clients, who will now have the ability to access it in the Pacific ex-Japan geography” commented Peter Sleep, portfolio manager at Seven Investment Management.

Yves Choueifaty, President of TOBAM declared: “Foreign investors look to markets such as Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong as a source of diversification. However, the market-cap weighted index in the region is strongly biased – with hefty concentrations in a small number of sectors. By applying the Anti-Benchmark method to this investment universe, TOBAM offers clients exposure that is both diversifying and diversified.”

TOBAM now offers 13 funds covering regional and global equities as well as commodities. This follows the successful launch of the Anti-Benchmark Emerging Markets Equities fund in June 2011.