Former SWF manager launches new French quant boutique

A French boutique focusing on quant fund management has been launched by a former manager of the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund.

The Aequam Capital group was founded by Arnaud Chrétien, a former quant manager for the sovereign fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, who has also worked on the Global CTA desk at SGAM.

The Paris-based boutique aims to offer a range of quantitative and systematic investment funds that aim to capitalise on trends and investment opportunities in major futures markets in interest rates, stock indices, currencies and commodities. It also aims to target a wide range of clients, from institutionals and private banks to fund of funds.

It has also launched its quant first fund, the Aequam Diversified fund which uses a proprietary quantitative tool (DynA: Dynamic Risk Allocator), the role of which is to dynamically allocate the risk of the portfolio across approximately 50 futures markets in four asset classes (equity indices, commodities, interest rates and currencies). The DynA method exploits trends by giving buy and sell orders on a daily basis.

'Controlled 90% by its partners, Aequam Capital is the realization of a collective and entrepreneurial project to develop a coherent range of quantitative management programs,' said the firm's founder Chrétien.

'A focus on innovation and R&D is at the heart of our methodology. Driven by predefined risk constraints, the performance of the funds managed by Aequam Capital is both a consequence and a reward for the use of the dynamically allocated risk budget.'