Alternative Investments

Natcan offers a complete line of pooled alternative investment funds.

Below is a summary of our alternative investment solutions. For a more detailed description, simply click on the fund name.

• Natcan Global Focused Fund
  The Fund seeks to exploit the arbitrage opportunity generated by a long-term view in a market excessively focused on the short term.
• Natcan Arbitrage Short-Term Bond Fund
  The investment objective of this trust is to generate positive annual absolute returns by investing in a portfolio of short-term federal or provincial government securities.
• Natcan Absolute Return Credit Fund
  The Fund’s objective is to obtain positive absolute annual returns by investing in a portfolio of credit securities in the high-yield, corporate, and preferred-share markets, while limiting the portfolio’s negative volatility.

Natcan Global Focused Fund

Product Description

The Natcan Global Focused Fund seeks to exploit investment opportunities stemming from the market’s compressed investment horizon. The managers utilize a concentrated approach, focusing on long-term global investment opportunities and correspondingly longer holding periods to counter the market’s excessive focus on the short term.

Preference is given to sectors offering sustainable growth and low volatility. The managers seek out and invest in the best business models globally: companies generating stable and persistent earnings growth, expanding and above-average profit margins, and high returns on capital. This combination of attractive characteristics provides a margin of safety and a cushion against a host of inevitable economic and business uncertainties.

Management Team

Natcan’s Global Equity team is comprised of sector and region specialists with over 50 years of combined investment experience. Much of this experience was accumulated as a team at Natcan and at previous investment firms.

Led by Lambros Piscopos, the team is further comprised of Markus Köbler, Justin Nightingale, Fatoumata Barry, Karl Pereira, and Usman Chohan.

Natcan Arbitrage Short-Term Bond Fund

Product Description

The investment objective of the Fund is to generate positive annual absolute returns by investing in a portfolio of short-term fixed-income securities issued by the government of Canada or by provincial governments. The goal is to carry out purchase and sale transactions according to market momentum so as to generate a profit.

The Fund’s primary strategy is to purchase and sell fixed-income securities based on their fundamental value and technical characteristics.

The portfolio manager uses certain technical indicators, such as Bollinger, RSI, Stochastics, moving averages and monitoring of daily economic data likely to cause interest rate variations. The investment policy permits the use of leverage up to 5 times the value of the capital and short selling.

Management Team

Money market portfolios are managed by Natcan’s team of fixed-income professionals, and most particularly Richard Lévesque, our money market manager. Richard works very closely with Gilles Chouinard and Marc-André Gaudreau, co-heads of the team, as well as Nicolas Normandeau, portfolio manager, and Mathieu Lachance in establishing overall portfolio strategies.

Roger Rouleau is the corporate-bond specialist, supported by a trader, Julien Bastien. Our high-yield bond specialist is Francis Pelletier, and he is supported by an analyst, Simon Dupuis.

The team benefits from the support of one analyst/trader, Daniel Doedel, and a quantitative analyst, Hugo Sarkisian.

Natcan Absolute Return Credit Fund

Product Description

The investment objective of the Fund is to obtain positive absolute annual returns by investing in a portfolio of credit securities in the high-yield, investment-grade and preferred-share markets, while limiting the portfolio's negative volatility.

The primary strategy of the Fund is to buy undervalued credits with limited downside probabilities, and sell overvalued credits with limited upside probabilities. The positive carry from the credit combined with reasonable leverage can generate substantial returns when the downside protection is effective.

Long/short positions on credit indices, capital arbitrage, and other trading strategies will also be used.

Management Team

As a member of the fixed-income platform, portfolio manager and high-yield bond expert Francis Pelletier oversees Natcan’s Absolute Return Credit Fund, assisted by analyst Simon Dupuis. Both benefit from the expertise of the other members of the fixed-income team, namely Marc-André Gaudreau and Gilles Chouinard, co-heads of the team, as well as Nicolas Normandeau, portfolio manager, and Mathieu Lachance, in charge of the government bond strategy. Roger Rouleau's corporate bond expertise is also very valuable.

The team is supported by one analyst/trader, Daniel Doedel, a quantitative analyst, Hugo Sarkisian, and a trader, Julien Bastien.

Francis also collaborates with different equity teams, sharing information with their experts.