BlueCrest to spin off trend-following fund

Hedge fund manager BlueCrest Capital Management is to float its BlueCrest BlueTrend systematic trading unit on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.

The listing will follow a placing and offer for subscription of ordinary shares. It is expected that a prospectus will be available at the end of February 2012 with admission expected to take place by late March.

Flotation of the company will give retail investors access to the BlueTrend programme, primarily through an investment in BlueTrend Fund Limited, BlueCrest's systematic trend-following fund. Although not part of BlueTrend's formal investment objective, the BlueCrest group manages BlueTrend with a current target annualised return (net of fees) in the range of 15% to 20%.

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BlueTrend trades in over 150 markets globally across a number of key asset classes including currencies, commodities, fixed income and equity indices. The BlueTrend programme has total current assets under management of around $13.6bn.

BlueTrend uses proprietary trend-following signals designed to identify trends and forecast market movements based on deep market research and technical analysis of historic price action and efficient electronic execution.

"We are proud of the 16 per cent annualised performance record BlueTrend has achieved since February 2005," said Leda Braga, the BlueCrest group's Head of Systematic Trading.

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