Auspice Capital Advisors Ltd. (“Auspice”) is Canada's largest active commodity & CTA fund manager with both retail and institutional products and partnerships in Canada and the US.
Fund aims to deliver noncorrelated returns, “crisis alpha”, and inflation protection in a new corporate class structure.
CALGARY (February 21, 2024) – Auspice Capital Advisors Ltd. (“Auspice”) announces the launch of the CI Auspice Alternative Diversified Corporate Class (“the Fund”), a systematic, trend-following, multi-strategy Fund that seeks to provide returns that are uncorrelated with other alternative strategies and fixed income, while also being negatively correlated to equities.
“We are excited to partner with CI GAM in bringing access to the Auspice flagship fund, the most tenured in its category in Canada, and one of few funds to deliver positive returns with negative equity correlation alongside actual commodity exposure” said Tim Pickering, the Auspice Chief Investment Officer and co-founder.
"We are in a volatile era marked by a structural shift in inflation, rising global conflict, and a narrowly focused stock market rally alongside a potential commodity supercycle. With 17 years of track record and a long history of delivering commodity and crisis alpha to institutional and accredited investors, opening the access to retail investors and advisors via our partners at CI was a natural step given the tremendous growth in demand for non-correlated returns.”
In the institutional world, quantitative trend-followers, known as CTAs, are receiving the biggest inflows. Per a 2023 Nasdaq report, there is significant demand for the profile Auspice provides. In 2023 this category saw the biggest inflows across hedge fund strategies.
“Auspice Diversified had 12 consecutive months of inflows last year, over $150mm since it became a publicly available “liquid alternative” mutual fund in 2023. We think 2024 will be multiples of that,” said Tim Pickering. “This provides a window of limited capacity to investors in an area of investing that has historically been dominated by the world's largest pensions.”
Jennifer Sinopoli, Executive Vice-President, and Head of Distribution for CI GAM, commented “CI Auspice Alternative Diversified Corporate Class is a unique mandate that offers investors enhanced diversification benefits and potential downside protection in volatile markets. It can help to strengthen portfolios in an uncertain investment landscape that, following spikes in inflation and interest rates, is vastly changed from previous years.”
Auspice Alternative Diversified Corporate Class
The Fund invests exclusively in units of Auspice Diversified Trust, the existing flagship fund managed by Auspice, which has been named sub-advisor to the Fund. Auspice Diversified Trust previously was only available to accredited and institutional investors.
The Fund uses a disciplined, rules-based agnostic (long and short) approach to invest in both commodities and other traditional financial futures markets. This results in increased diversification and the potential for “crisis alpha” – delivering outperformance during equity market corrections and down-trends. The Fund’s trend-following strategy and emphasis on commodities also can provide a hedge against inflation.
The team at Auspice, which was founded in 2006 by Pickering and long-time investment partner Ken Corner, both Shell Trading and TD bank alumni, has extensive experience in commodities, trading, risk management and quantitative investment strategies. Auspice is also sub-advisor to CI Auspice Broad Commodity Fund, which is available as a mutual fund and ETF (TSX: CCOM).
CI Auspice Alternative Diversified Corporate Class can be purchased for an initial minimum investment of $500. It has a risk rating of medium and management fee of 1.00%. The Fund also charges a performance fee, which is subject to a hurdle rate and a high-water mark. For further details, please see the simplified prospectus.
About CI Global Asset Management
CI GAM is a leader in the alternative investment segment in Canada with a strong lineup of liquid alternatives mandates with approximately $3.8 billion in total assets (as at December 31, 2023; excluding cryptocurrency funds).
“CI GAM continues to expand and diversify its lineup of alternative investment solutions by both leveraging the expertise of our own investment team as well as engaging specialized third-party managers such as Auspice,” said Ms. Sinopoli. “We strongly believe that individual investors can benefit from an allocation to alternatives, and we remain committed to providing them with access to sophisticated, institutional-style solutions.”
CI Global Asset Management (“CI GAM”) is one of Canada’s largest investment management companies. It offers a wide range of investment products and services and is on the Web at www.ci.com. CI GAM is a subsidiary of CI Financial Corp. (TSX: CIX), an integrated global asset and wealth management company with approximately $444.8 billion in assets as at December 31, 2023.
About Auspice Capital Advisors
Auspice is an innovative alternative asset manager that focuses on applying rules-based investment strategies across a broad range of commodity and financial markets. Auspice offers liquid alternative and commodity strategies that provide the benefits of active management and the efficiency of indexing. Auspice works with a wide range of clients and develops solutions to improve their portfolio or product suite. Auspice strategies are available directly to institutions, financial professionals and high-net-worth individual investors as well as retail investors through the Auspice brand along with sub-advisory and licensing arrangements. www.auspicecapital.com.
Prior to February 28, 2023, Auspice Diversified Trust was offered via offering memorandum only and this Fund was not a reporting issuer during such prior period. The expenses of the Fund would have been higher during such prior period had the Fund been subject to the additional regulatory requirements applicable to a reporting issuer. Auspice obtained exemptive relief on behalf of the Fund to permit the disclosure of the prior performance data for the Fund for the time period prior to it becoming a reporting issuer.
Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses may all be associated with investment funds. Please read the prospectus before investing. Investment funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated.
The contents on this article are provided for informational and educational purposes and are not intended to provide specific individual advice including, without limitation, investment, financial, legal, accounting and tax. Please consult with your own professional advisor on your particular circumstances.
Futures trading is speculative and is not suitable for all customers. Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results. This document is for information purposes only and should not be construed as an offer, recommendation or solicitation to conclude a transaction and should not be treated as giving investment advice. Auspice Capital Advisors Ltd. makes no representation or warranty relating to any information herein, which is derived from independent sources. No securities regulatory authority has expressed an opinion about the securities offered herein and it is an offence to claim otherwise. Please read the offering documents before investing.
Certain statements in this document are forward- looking statements, including those identified by the expressions “anticipate”, “believe”, “plan”, “estimate”, “expect”, “intend”, “target”, “seek”, “will” and similar expressions to the extent they relate to the Fund and the Manager. Forward- looking statements are not historical facts but reflect the current expectations of the Fund and the Manager regarding future results or events. Such forward-looking statements reflect the Fund’s and the Manager’s current beliefs and are based on information currently available to them. Forward-looking statements are made with assumptions and involve significant risks and uncertainties. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this document are based upon assumptions that the Fund and the Manager believe to be reasonable, neither the Fund or the Manager can assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. As a result, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements as a number of factors could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations.
The forward-looking statements contained herein were prepared for the purpose of providing prospective investors with general educational background information about the Funds and may not be appropriate for other purposes. Neither the Fund or the Manager assumes any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.
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©Auspice Capital Advisors Inc. 2024. All rights reserved.
Contact:
Tim Pickering
Founder and CIO