Searching for alpha is a tricky business. Pension funds are eager to bolster their returns in choppy markets but know that they must vigilantly manage their risk-taking. One solution: The funds are snapping up all manner of risk-controlled quantitative strategies, fattening the coffers of such leading quant managers as Barclays Global Investors and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

No money manager has exploited the surging demand more successfully than Intech, the Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, quantitative specialist, whose assets soared from $6 billion in 2003 to $28 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2005, a stunning gain of more than 350 percent. During the same period, reports consulting firm Casey, Quirk & Associates, assets in U.S. equity quantitative products nearly doubled, from $148 billion to $289 billion. Intech's secret? A limited product lineup: just four risk-controlled equity strategies that deliver impressive performance while reducing risk.

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