Deutsche's hedge fund business and Plusfunds to distribute S&P Hedge Fund Index products

DB Absolute Return Strategies (DB ARS), the global hedge fund management business of Deutsche Bank, and PlusFunds, a New York-based service platform for hedge funds, have signed an agreement for the distribution of S&P Hedge Fund Index-based products managed by PlusFunds.

Under the terms of the agreement, DB ARS will be the exclusive distributor of these investment vehicles to US institutional investors in conjunction with Deutsche Asset Management’s institutional sales force.

The S&P Hedge Fund Index, which Standard & Poor’s introduced in May 2002 and launched on November 18, is designed to broadly represent the hedge fund market. PlusFunds holds the exclusive licence from Standard & Poor’s to develop certain investable products based on the S&P Hedge Fund Index.

The S&P Hedge Fund Index comprises 40 funds divided into three style sub-indexes: arbitrage, event-driven and directional/tactical. The arbitrage sub-index includes equity market-neutral, fixed-income arbitrage and convertible arbitrage strategies. The event-driven sub-index includes merger arbitrage, distressed and special situations strategies. The directional/tactical sub-index includes long/short equity, managed futures and macro strategies.

“The US institutional market is beginning to understand the attributes of hedge funds, so participation in this arena is likely to grow significantly, and the use of indexes will help accelerate this process,” said Christopher Sugrue, PlusFunds' chairman.