The Swiss banking group Syz & Co has launched Oyster Market Neutral Plus, a new sub-fund of Oyster, its Luxembourg UCITS SICAV.

The fund is an increased leverage version of the Oyster Market Neutral fund, whose neutral beta long/short strategy has proved itself since it was launched four years ago.
 
Managed by Syz Asset Management according to the same investment process and with the same diversification and non-correlation objectives as the original fund, Oyster Market Neutral Plus offers 2x leverage and targets a return of LIBOR +10 per cent.
 
With a target return of Libor +10 per cent a year over a full cycle, Oyster Market Neutral Plus aims to achieve a performance twice as high as the original strategy. To do so, it uses twice as much leverage, which means that the portfolio’s exposure may vary from 100 per cent to 400 per cent. Volatility target limits will be 12 per cent, instead of six per cent for the original fund. Managed according to the same process and by the same team at Syz Asset Management (Giacomo Picchetto and Stefano Girola), Oyster Market Neutral Plus also retains the same portfolio diversification and non-correlation objectives as Oyster Market Neutral.
 
Oyster Market Neutral ranks in the top 25 per cent of its category over three years and since the beginning of 2014, and in the top 10 per cent over two years. Apart from Luxembourg, the sub-fund is already registered in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy and Sweden. It should soon be registered in France and Switzerland.
 
“With interest rates in Europe offering mediocre returns, the original fund is aimed mainly at conservative investors looking for a substitute for their bond investments. The double-leverage version will be attractive to investors wishing to invest in the equity market while limiting directional bias,” says Xavier Guillon, CEO of Oyster Funds.