Visium Asset Management, a multi-strategy alternative investment firm with USD6.9 billion in assets under management, has launched the Visium US Equity Alpha UCITS Fund, a diversified, US-focused long/short equity fund.

Domiciled in Ireland, the Fund employs a long/short equity investment strategy, leveraging Visium’s robust, sector-specific fundamental research process to construct a US-focused portfolio across industry sectors. The Fund seeks to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns with low correlation to traditional bond and equity investments. The Fund’s strategy, which has a four-year track record, was previously deployed in a vehicle called the Visium Tax Alpha Fund, LP.

The Fund is managed by a team of veteran Visium executives with extensive hedge fund and institutional investment experience. The team, which oversees more than 60 in-house sector specialists, is comprised of Robert Kim, Portfolio Manager and Global Director of Research, Duggan Jensen, US Director of Research, and Andrew Pickup, EU Director of Research.

“The US equity markets present exciting long/short investment opportunities across sectors, resulting from a strong dollar, low interest rates, reduced energy costs, and continued merger & acquisition activity. Our deep investment team has a solid track-record of identifying and capitalising on catalyst-driven situations, and with increasing market volatility is well-positioned to generate alpha for investors,” says Robert Kim.

“We believe there is significant demand from sophisticated European investors for a well-constructed, long/short US equity fund,” says Jacob Gottlieb, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Visium. “Global institutional investors have been attracted to our fundamental investment approach and rigorous risk-management process across our scalable, global platform. We are confident that this new UCITS fund offers an attractive opportunity for investors seeking to access the US market in a risk-adjusted manner.”

Visium’s London office led the structuring and organising of the Fund, the first vehicle to be launched on the firm’s internal UCITS platform.