KLS Arete Macro, managed by Ocean Arete Limited from Hong Kong, is celebrating its three-year anniversary this month at the same time reaching an important milestone with assets under management crossing $1bn.

Since the launch of the UCITS, the fund has annualised 8.1% with a volatility of 5.8%. This is consistent with the strategies long term track record of 10.3% annualised return with a 7.3% volatility and low correlation to traditional asset classes, proving to be a great alternative investment.

The KLS Arete Macro Fund launched in July of 2018 to replicate the discretionary macro strategy Will Li and his team have managed in a Cayman Fund since 2012. The strategy focuses on trading the rapidly changing global macroeconomic conditions with a particular focus on Asia. The strategy is implemented using only liquid instruments, helping to facilitate a robust approach to risk management. The UCITS is managed in line with the Cayman Fund and is the sole strategy run by the team at Arete.

Will Li, CIO and Founder of Ocean Arete comments:

“Three years is a short time, but it has been a great journey for the Arete team to partner closely with Kepler to make Arete’s macro strategy available to UCITS investors. We are extremely gratified by investors’ reception of the KLS Arete Macro Fund, with its continued focus on generating good risk adjusted returns for our clients. Going forward we are committed to working closely with Kepler and striving to navigate what will surely be a volatile but very interesting macro environment.”

Will Li was born in China and moved to the US in his teens where he was educated at Harvard and Stamford, studying macroeconomics before returning to Asia to pursuing a career in Investment Banking. Will left a successful career in Banking to establish Ocean Arete and trade his Macro views. In 2016 Brummer & Partners partnered with Arete further institutionalising their business and ultimately leading to the partnership with Kepler and the launch of the KLS Arete Macro Fund in July 2018.

Tom Trotter, Senior Partner and Head of Sales at Kepler, said:

“It is great to see the KLS Arete Macro Fund reaching these two important milestones, especially in such a challenging environment globally. Will and the team have shown how robust their process is delivering strong returns for our clients across a range of market environments. We are pleased with the continued interest we are seeing from institutional investors across the globe and look forward to reaching more milestones in the months and years ahead.”

Georg Reutter, Senior Partner and Head of Investments added:

“Will and his team have an undeniably differentiated global viewpoint, and this has shown itself through the life of the fund. This, coupled with a strong culture around risk management, has meant that the portfolio has been able to perform in even the most challenging periods, notably last year, making it stand out from the universe of other macro UCITS funds. We look forward to continuing our strong partnership with the team at Arete.”

KLS Arete Macro fund is one of six sub-funds on the Kepler Liquid Strategies Platform, an Irish UCITS platform set up by Kepler Partners LLP in 2016. Platform AUM is $1.5bn (as at July 2021).

About Kepler Partners LLP

Kepler Partners has been active in the alternative UCITS space since its infancy in 2009 and has witnessed at first hand the development of this universe of funds.

In 2016 we launched our UCITS platform, Kepler Liquid Strategies, with the express aim of partnering with best-in-class alternative managers to launch and distribute their UCITS strategies to our network of investors.

Our approach to manager selection is underpinned by a rigorous research process, central to which is our fund database www.absolutehedge.com. This research database is designed as a central point of reference for both managers and allocators interested in the alternative UCITS universe and forms a key part of our manager selection and product design process.

To bring our research to life we host a wide range of conferences designed to drive engagement with the buyers of alternative UCITS funds in both the UK and Europe.