Amati's AAA-rated Paul Jourdan plans commodities futures fund

Amati Global Investors, the boutique formed by former First State star Paul Jourdan, is to launch a commodities futures trading fund.

The group has hired in a team of three investment managers, Jason Rolf, Chris Allen and Gordon Izatt, to spearhead the launch, which is expected to come to market at the end of April.

The team is planning to seed the unregulated commodity traded adviser fund with its own capital ahead of attracting further investors.

Although commodities are a hot favourite among investors at the moment, Citywire AAA-rated star Jourdan expects the vehicle will diversify into other asset classes.

‘It’s not just pure commodities, [it will be] all asset classes that can trade in the liquid futures market,’ he said.

The Amati Systematic Trends fund will be quants driven, playing market themes. It is expected to be domiciled in Malta.

The new team all have extensive futures trading experience. Both Allen and Izatt joined from BP, where they built and established a new systematic and diversified managed futures programme. Rolf has previously been an independent trader and founded several trading software firms.

The launch will broaden out the group’s mix of assets. Amati chief executive Jourdan, who is a highly regarded smaller cap manager, runs the CF Amati UK Smaller Companies fund. Formerly this was the First State UK Smaller Companies fund, which he took with him when he left the asset manager in 2007.

After acquiring Noble Fund Managers, the group moved into venture capital trusts and recently it took over Andy Crossley’s Invesco Perpetual AIM VCT, following his departure from the group last November.