WILSHIRE FUNDS MANAGEMENT AND FAIRFIELD GREENWICH GROUP ANNOUNCE A CO-BRANDED TURNKEY PORTABLE ALPHA SOLUTION
SANTA MONICA, CA, December 6, 2006 – Wilshire Funds Management, a business
unit of Wilshire Associates Incorporated that provides more than $15 billion in traditional
and alternative multi-manager investment solutions to institutional clients, and New
York-based Fairfield Greenwich Group ("FGG"), a more than $10 billion global hedge
fund and fund of hedge funds management firm, today announced a strategic relationship
to provide turnkey portable alpha solutions to institutional investors.
FGG and Wilshire Funds Management will work together to create customizable
investment strategies for institutional clients that combine alpha and beta in one turnkey
portable alpha solution. FGG's role in this relationship will be to provide institutional
quality alpha solutions while Wilshire Funds Management will act as the beta manager.
"We are very excited to have FGG as a partner in the portable alpha space," said
Lawrence E. Davanzo, Senior Managing Director and head of Wilshire Funds
Management. "Wilshire has been active in risk management for more than 30 years and
was the first firm to provide beta measurement technology solutions to investment
managers beginning in the early 1970s. We think that this turnkey solution combines a
quality source of alpha with an appropriate management of beta. Clients will have an
extra layer of comfort knowing they have two firms with extensive experience as
fiduciaries overseeing their portable alpha program."
Jeffrey Tucker, one of FGG's Founding Partners, commented: "We are delighted to have
a partner as respected and capable as Wilshire in this new endeavor. We are confident
that this is an extremely attractive portable alpha program, one which we believe offers a
very seamless, efficient, and powerful investment strategy."
Portable alpha is the process of gaining synthetic access to an index through the use of
futures or swaps while overlaying an equal allocation to an uncorrelated alpha source.
Excess returns over the index are produced when the alpha source produces returns in
excess of the cost of attaining the beta (and any additional fees).
About Wilshire Funds Management
Wilshire Funds Management is a business unit of Wilshire Associates, a leading global
investment technology, investment consulting and investment management firm. Wilshire
Associates has four business units, including: Wilshire Consulting, Wilshire Analytics,
Wilshire Funds Management and Wilshire Private Markets.
Wilshire Funds Management provides customized multi-discipline, multi-manager, and
hedge fund investment solutions to financial intermediaries serving retail and institutional
investors. It offers both risk based and target maturity portfolios, multi-manager U.S.,
non-U.S., and global equity and fixed income portfolios, as well as global tactical asset
allocation overlay portfolios. In addition, it provides its clients with comprehensive
access to Wilshire's proprietary manager research capabilities as a basis for identifying
"best of class" managers on their investment platforms.
Wilshire Associates was founded in 1972, revolutionizing the industry by pioneering the
application of investment analytics and research to investment management for the
institutional marketplace. Wilshire also is credited with helping to develop the field of
quantitative investment analysis that uses mathematical tools to analyze market risks. All
other business units evolved from Wilshire's strong analytics foundation. Wilshire
developed the index now known as the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Indexsm, the
first asset/liability models for pension funds, the first U.S. equity style metrics work, and
many other "firsts" as the firm grew to more than 300 employees serving the investment
needs of institutional and high net worth clients around the world.
Based in Santa Monica, CA, Wilshire provides services to clients in more than 20
countries representing in excess of 600 organizations with assets totaling more than US
$12.5 trillion. With nine offices on four continents, Wilshire Associates and its affiliates
are dedicated to providing clients with the highest quality counsel, products, and services.
Please visit www.wilshire.com for more information.
About Fairfield Greenwich Group
Founded in 1983, Fairfield Greenwich Group ("FGG") is a leading alternative
asset investment specialist. FGG offers a variety of single manager, multi-strategy, and
fund-of-funds to meet most alternative investors' needs. As of November, 2006, FGG
has more than USD$10 billion in client and firm assets under management. It is an
employee-owned firm with over 90 employees, 13 of whom are shareholders, and has
offices in New York, London, and Bermuda, and representative offices elsewhere in the
U.S., Europe, and Latin America, and a joint venture in Singapore. FGG entities are
registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") as an investment
adviser.
Please visit
www.FGGUS.com for more information.
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