•  
• Tweet
•  
•  
•        Print
•  
•        Email
•  
•         Track Keywords

AL&P is the sole active currency manager being hired at this time. The appointment represents the culmination of a year and half of RFI and RFP due diligence work by KPERS, the $17.1 billion retirement fund for public employees in the state of Kansas and their consultant Pension Consulting Alliance.

The mandate’s objective is to protect KPERS’ foreign investments against foreign currency depreciation and to achieve currency alpha. This will be implemented through a 50 pct. hedged benchmark and AL&P's active currency strategy, which seeks to identify and exploit misvaluation opportunities in all market conditions.

Over the last year, AL&P’s actively managed assets have almost doubled from winning new mandates and increasing assets from existing clients. With the KPERS appointment, AL&P’s total assets under active management have risen to over $8.5 billion.

Commenting on the appointment by KPERS, Adrian Lee, President and CIO of AL&P said: “This is a significant win for our business and attests to the strong performance of our active currency management offering over many years, our diversified process and our exclusive commitment to this speciality as an employee owned firm.

“In the past year there have been two key trends that have played a role in us growing our client base. First, there has been a significant increase in demand for currency strategies by institutional investors, especially in the US, who are seeking to protect their foreign currency investments from a rising US Dollar. There is also the increasing awareness that active currency management can generate additional returns to an international equity portfolio. This has resulted in an influx of formal RFIs or RFPs from US institutional investors over the past year.

“Second, there has been the consolidation on the provider’s side of active currency management for institutional investors, resulting in fewer active currency managers with the capability to provide the level of service large institutional investors require.”