FFCM, the investment adviser to the QuantShares family of alternative ETFs, has hired Berkshire Capital Securities to find a strategic partner to help with the distribution and marketing of its growing family of ETFs.
FFCM chief executive Bill DeRoche (pictured) says: “We have hired Berkshire Capital to help us find a strategic partner that has strong distribution and marketing capabilities that will complement our investment and product management expertise. We also are pleased to announce the raising of an additional round of financing that will allow us to continue the expansion of our family of liquid alternative ETFs. The liquid alternative market and ETF use in general are expected to be two of the highest growth areas of financial services in the coming years according to firms such as McKinsey & Company and Cerulli and we believe that we are one of the best positioned firms to take advantage of both of these trends.”
QuantShares currently has a family of four liquid alternative ETFs designed to provide investors with inexpensive absolute returns or to hedge equity exposure. The funds are all market and sector neutral designed to provide low or negative correlation to the equity market. These funds include:
Absolute return:
QuantShares US Market Neutral Momentum Fund
QuantShares US Market Neutral Value Fund
QuantShares US Market Neutral Size Fund
Hedging:
QuantShares US Market Neutral Anti-Beta Fund
In addition, in response to investor demand, FFCM has filed a registration statement with the SEC to launch six additional funds. Two of the funds are absolute return strategies while four are long only funds that invest in the long side of our market neutral funds. These funds include:
Absolute return:
QuantShares US Dividend Income Absolute Return Fund
QuantShares US Low Beta Absolute Return Fund
Long-only factor based:
QuantShares US Low Beta Fund
QuantShares US Relative Value Fund
QuantShares US High Quality Fund
QuantShares US High Momentum Fund
“Over the past two years we have seen a significant increase in the use of liquid alternatives in investors overall asset allocation. Our unique exemptive relief allows us to create inexpensive alternative ETFs to help investors decrease volatility in their portfolios and increase their risk adjusted returns. We believe that the addition of two absolute return and four long-only factor based funds will position QuantShares as the leading provider of liquid alternative ETFs in the market and we look forward to the launching of these products in 2013,” says DeRoche.
