Natixis Global Associates yesterday launched the Westpeak ActiveBeta® Equity Fund in partnership with Westpeak Global Advisors. The 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. It will be managed by Khalid Ghayur, Stephen Platt and Stephen Komon of Westpeak.

The fund uses a quantitative portfolio construction technique in which all stocks in the S&P 500 Index are ranked independently according to value and momentum signals on a monthly basis. 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.

Typically, the fund will invest in about 65 percent of the names in the S&P 500 Index (approximately 325 stocks), taking small positions in each relative to the index. The portfolio’s weighting of a single security is generally no more than one percent higher than the index and no less than 1.2 percent lower than the index. Both firms are touting the fund’s transparent approach.

"Our research shows that broadly diversified portfolios of stocks with value and momentum characteristics can generate long-term outperformance while also reducing the magnitude of potential short-term underperformance relative to the benchmark,” stated Ghayur, co-portfolio manager of the fund. “Our fund advances the active versus passive investing debate by providing a transparent and cost-effective 'beta' capture of well-documented sources of market outperformance in a '40 Act fund."  

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