Natixis Global and Westpeak Roll Out New Mutual Fund

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Natixis Global Associates (NGA) launched the Westpeak ActiveBeta Equity Fund in conjunction with Westpeak Global Advisors on Tuesday, August 3. The mutual fund will seek to outperform the S&P 500 Index by employing a quantitative value and momentum strategy that uses Westpeak’s proprietary portfolio construction process.

Khalid Ghayur, Stephen Platt and Stephen Komon of Westpeak will manage the new product.

According to an NGA announcement, the fund uses a disciplined quantitative portfolio construction technique in which every month all stocks in the S&P 500 Index are ranked independently according to value and momentum signals, NGA said in an announcement. Value signals include price-to-book, price-to-sales and price-to-cash flow (or earnings). The momentum indicator is a stock’s trailing 12-month return.

The fund takes positions in high value, high momentum and high value and momentum stocks. Typically, it will invest in about 65% of the names in the S&P 500 Index (some 325 stocks), taking small positions in each relative to the index. The portfolio’s weighting of a single security is generally no more than 1% higher than the index and no less than 1.2% lower than the index. The fund’s approach is entirely transparent, the announcement said. It does not use a portfolio optimizer or “black box.”

The new fund adds to NGA’s growing lineup of investment products. Besides the Westpeak ActiveBeta Equity Fund, the firm offers investors the Gateway Fund, the AEW Real Estate Fund, the ASG Diversifying Strategies Fund, and the ASG Global Alternatives Fund.

Boulder, Colo.-based Westpeak Global Advisors, L.P. is a 20-year-old investment management firm that develops and provides quantitatively driven investment solutions to investors. NGA is the distribution arm of Natixis Global Asset Management, which is headquartered in Paris and Boston. As June 30, the firm had $651 billion in assets under management.

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