Seven Investment Management has joined forces with US firm Pzena to launch a new US Large Cap Diversified Value strategy, marking the latter's first foray into the European fund market.
As its anchor investor 7im has seeded the new fund with $10m and will put another $40m into the strategy in the coming weeks.
Peter Sleep, senior portfolio manager at the firm, said: "Pzena is not well known in the UK retail market, but it has about $12.5bn AUM with some blue chip clients, such as California Public Retirement Fund (Calpers) reputedly one of the biggest pension funds in the world, as well as being sub-adviser of funds on behalf of UBS, Russell Investments, Lombard Odier, BNP and Vanguard.
"7im are buying the fund based upon a strategy recommendation from our consultants Ibbotson Associates, based in Chicago. Ibbotson founded Pzena's deep value approach and good long-term track record attractive."
He said the seeding had taken nearly a year to arrange because Pzena needed to set up a Dublin-based umbrella from scratch, but that the wait had been mutually beneficial since Pzena gained a sizable anchor investor and a foothold in the European fund market, and 7im clients are now able to gain access to a prestigious US fund manager.
This seeding from 7im follows on from one earlier this month of the Tobam Anti-Benchmark Pacific ex-Japan Equity Fund - a passive strategy which seeks to remove the traditional reliance on the cap-weighting of indices.
Rich Pzena, founder and CEO of Pzena Investment Management, said "We formed Pzena Investment Management in late 1995 with a basic premise; a concentrated portfolio built with serious research, an unwavering discipline to valuation, and a business owner’s investment horizon offers a meaningful advantage over most market participants.
"We operate from the perspective that opportunities are rarely obvious and even more rarely embedded in the short-term. We are excited to begin what we hope will be a long-term relationship with such a quality investment house as 7IM and look at the launch of our US Large Cap Diversified Value Fund as the next step in our ongoing business development efforts overseas."