Castlestone launches Ucits fund on Cofunds platform

Castlestone Management has announced the delayed launch of its third Ucits-compliant fund on the Cofunds platform.

The Intelligent Portfolio (IQ) Asset Allocation (Ucits) Fund went live on the independent platform on March 1 after months of development.

Castlestone originally planned to launch the fund in October 2009 but found wrapping the multi-asset fund in a Ucits-compliant structure took more effort than doing the same with the commodity funds  previously launched by the company.

The fund is a multi-asset fund with actively managed exposure in global equity securities, global fixed income, commodity markets, money market instruments, global property and alternative investment strategies

Castlestone fund manager Bradley Yim said the fund followed a broadly similar strategy to its British Virgin Islands-domiciled offshore counterpart.

Yim said the Ucits fund would generally be long-biased with the ability to be short-biased when necessary. It would be rebalanced on a monthly basis, with a 6-12 month investment oulook.

The IQ Fund is targeting returns of 5% with daily liquidity. It is domiciled in Ireland and has been approved by the Irish Regulator. It offers daily liquidity and is available in US dollar, sterling and euro share classes.

The minimum institutional investment is $1 million, £1 million or €1 million.

The IQ Fund is the third of Castlestone's offshore offerings to be replicated in a Ucits vehicle, following the Aliquot Agriculture Fund and the Aliquot Commodity Fund.