Man, The Pension Plan Deficit Buster

The way to a pension’s heart is through its deficit, or so Man Investments surmises. The London-based hedge fund giant has created a new offering that it hopes will tickle the fancy of the new favorite HF investors – pension funds – by touting its ability to cut financial deficits that are plaguing U.K. retirement plans. The AHL Inflation Plus, which has been dubbed “the deficit buster,” is the handiwork of Man and pension consultant Ros Altmann. “What trustees need is not risk elimination, but risk minimization and management,” Altmann told reporters. “Trustees really have to engage in new areas of investment expertise. What trustees have to wake up to is that the complexities can be avoided.” The AHL IP offers a three-prong strategy to defang the deficit dragon: a swap agreement based on a limited price indexation, a 15-year zero coupon bond, and a pool of money invested in the fund’s managed futures program. While the first two prongs are intended to provide the pension plan with “a guaranteed inflation-adjusted outcome,” HedgeWorld explains, the third part relies on quantitative strategies to produce leveraged returns via futures contracts and foreign currency. If AHL IP generates a lot of business, it could present a capacity problem to Man, says HedgeWorld, but given that pension plans in the U.K. generally allocate only 1% of their assets to hedge funds, it may mean that those early-bird investors may catch the best returns.