Absolute return investing

Following extensive financial market volatility over recent years, many investors are currently looking for ways to reduce uncertainty within their portfolio while still growing their assets. As a result, absolute return funds have become increasingly popular as they seek to provide positive returns whether markets are rising or falling. At Standard Life Investments, we have extensive experience investing for absolute returns and offer two funds that aim to help investors meet their long-term financial objectives.

In 2005, we successfully implemented an absolute return approach to provide a lower-volatility framework in which our parent group, Standard Life, could better aim to meet its pension objectives. We subsequently launched the Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund (GARS) in May 2008, providing access to retail investors. GARS aims to deliver an absolute return over rolling 12-month periods and has a target return of cash* +5% per annum (gross of fees) over rolling 3-year periods. To achieve this, we seek returns through 20-30 uncorrelated strategies chosen across asset classes and on a global basis.

For investors looking to achieve absolute returns through an investment in fixed income, we launched our Absolute Return Global Bond Strategies Fund in March 2011. It also aims to deliver an absolute return over rolling 12-month periods and has a target return of cash** +2.5% per annum, gross of fees, over rolling 3-year periods. This is achieved through a variety of fixed income investment opportunities including corporate and government bonds, as well as interest rates, inflation, volatility and currencies.