The objective strategy

BNP Paribas’ merger arbitrage fund is outperforming. Its objectivity is a key factor behind its success. Matthew Crabbe reports

Dealers are racing to launch products that synthetically reproduce hedge fundand proprietary trading desk strategies. But how do they make derivatives thatactually outperform the real thing? BNP Paribas says it has some of the answerswith a merger arbitrage index fund product that replicates an arbitrage fundstrategy by picking pairs of shares – that is, shares in companies thatare likely to be bought and shares in companies that are likely to be buyers.The scope of the index is global