New products introduced over the last week include a new series of investment benchmarks from Russell and Barclays and a new hedged value fund from RiverPark. In addition, Allianz Life introduced a new variable annuity rider and Jackson National Life introduced a new VA option.
Here are the latest developments of interest to advisors:
1) Russell Investments and Barclays Introduce LDI Index Series
Russell Investments and Barclays announced on Wednesday the creation of a new set of investable liability-driven investment (LDI) fixed-income benchmarks for U.S. corporate pension funds. The Barclays-Russell LDI Index Series offers pension fund investors a standard set of rules-based and transparent fixed-income benchmarks that are designed to offer better liability tracking properties than traditional benchmarks currently in use.
The series consists of six high-quality, mostly corporate-bond-based, benchmarks with target durations of 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 years. Each LDI index is reconstituted annually back to the targeted maturity minimum range to reflect changes in market yields while minimizing turnover, and rebalanced monthly to remove bonds falling below the maturity threshold or quality standard and add newly issued bonds that qualify.
Issuer concentration is reduced through a 2% issuer cap. When using the series, investors will be able to select a single LDI index or a combination to most accurately reflect their specific liabilities.
2) RiverPark Introduces RiverPark/Gargoyle Hedged Value Fund
RiverPark Advisors LLC announced Thursday that it has introduced the RiverPark/Gargoyle Hedged Value Fund (RGHVX).The new fund is a conversion of the Gargoyle Hedged Value Fund L.P., which has a 12-year performance record as a hedge fund.
It is subadvised by Gargoyle Investment Advisor L.L.C., with Gargoyle’s co-founders Alan L. Salzbank and Joshua B. Parker as co-portfolio managers; they have acted as co-portfolio managers on the Gargoyle Hedged Value Fund L.P. since its inception.
RGHVX employs value-oriented stock investing and index option overwriting in seeking to provide long-term capital appreciation with lower risk than the broad stock market. It will generally stay fully invested in the equity securities of medium- to large-capitalization companies, currently defined as those with a minimum of $1.5 billion in market value.