Columbia Management has launched a liquid alternative mutual fund, the Columbia Adaptive Alternatives Fund (CLAAX) providing investors with access to a multi-strategy fund from Blackstone Alternative Investment Advisers.
Through the convenience of a traditional mutual fund with daily liquidity and multiple share classes, the fund offers investors access to a range of underlying hedge fund advisers selected by Blackstone, and to alternative beta strategies and non-traditional asset classes (including commodities, REITs, inflation-linked bonds and listed private equity) managed by Columbia Management.
The structure of the fund can provide several benefits: Access to a wide array of alternative investments and strategies selected by two leading investment firms packaged in a daily liquidity mutual fund, return opportunities designed to be uncorrelated to traditional asset classes – stocks and bonds – and the diversification benefits of alternative investment strategies.
The fund is managed by Jeffrey Knight, CFA, William Landes, PhD, and Marc Khalamayzer, CFA. Investors are increasingly looking for portfolio diversifiers to reduce the impact of volatile markets and the portfolio management team’s goal is to provide investors absolute (positive) returns over a complete market cycle with the expectation that those returns will have a low correlation to traditional asset classes such as stocks and bonds.
The fund offers Class A and Class C Shares, both with USD2,000 minimum initial investments for all accounts other than IRAs, which is USD1,000. The Fund also offers Class R, Class R4, Class R5, Class Y and Class Z shares.
“Alternative investments offer the potential to increase portfolio diversification by generating returns that are uncorrelated to traditional stock and bond markets. We are excited to bring investors a daily liquid alternative mutual fund powered by the hedge fund expertise of Blackstone and the alternative investment expertise of Columbia,” said Bill Landes, Portfolio Manager and Deputy Head of Global Investment Solutions at Columbia Management.
John McCormick, Global Head of Strategy for Blackstone’s Hedge Fund Solutions platform, says: “The Blackstone fund, in which the Columbia Adaptive Alternative Fund indirectly invests, leverages our extensive experience building custom solutions for sophisticated institutional investors. We at Blackstone are confident that we have identified hedge fund strategies and managers that translate well into a multi-manager solution in a 1940 Act framework. Investors will benefit from Blackstone’s manager due diligence procedures, top down asset allocation views and ongoing portfolio management capabilities.”
