Face to Face: with Michael Azlen, Frontier Capital Management

Michael Azlen, chief executive of Frontier Capital Management, is determined to make sophisticated investment more accessible to financial advisers and claims his approach will beat 90% of active managers in the long term.

Former hedge fund managers who have certified financial planner status may be thin on the ground, but then it is fair to say that Frontier Capital Management chief executive Michael Azlen is a break from the norm.

Market pinpointed

Before setting up Frontier, Azlen, former head of New York-based alternative investment firm Asset Alliance, had a clear idea of the market he was looking to serve – and taking the CFP helped to provide a route into that clientele.

Azlen said he wanted to bring the level of sophisticated investment normally reserved for the ultra-high-net-worth to a wider audience at a fraction of the price – and saw UK financial planners as the obvious target for his new venture.

‘We decided we wanted to align the business with the best in financial planning,’ he said, adding that it was not long before he got in contact with the Institute of Financial Planning, which said taking the CFP would offer the best insight into UK financial planning.

‘To me that was the best way to attempt to do it. Believe me, it was difficult to do – you have to take so many papers!’

A new frontier

Freshly CFP-qualified, Azlen set up Frontier in 2004 with a multi-asset fund made up of different indices that he says marks a break from what has gone before in both the passive and multi-asset investment worlds.

FSA approval for a UK version of its Dublin-domiciled conservative fund is imminent, which the firm hopes will raise its profile. Despite its long-time offshore status it has nevertheless already built up a following in the New Model Adviser® community.

A multi-asset approach

Frontier’s proposition centres on its Multi Asset Platform funds. The range is essentially made up of the one fund, but through the use of leveraging, Frontier has created different versions of the fund for varying risk profiles.

It invests across eight asset classes, with exposure to each of the asset classes provided by indices set by Frontier itself.