This is Waratah’s second liquid alternative mutual fund.

Waratah Capital Advisors Ltd, a Canadian alternative investment manager, announced Monday its launch of the Waratah Alternative ESG Fund. The mutual fund is Waratah’s second liquid alternative offering and is powered by the firm’s alternative ESG strategy. (Yahoo Finance)

Waratah Alternative ESG Fund (AESG)

The new fund will operate a diversified portfolio of long and short equity positions. ESG factors would be integrated into the investment strategy.

The ESG screening strategy offers investors exposure to newly-developing opportunities such as water technology, battery materials, renewable energy, and plastics innovation. At the same time, it reduces inadvertent and direct ESG-related risks.

The mutual fund is open to high net worth retail investors and their advisors. It adopts a multi-manager approach and targets 7-9% annualized returns, net of fees.

The minimum investment is $5,000.

One of North America’s first equity long-short ESG strategies

“After more than two years of research and development we launched one of North America’s first equity long-short ESG strategies, which integrates’ our bottom-up company stock-specific analysis and our existing factor management with ESG analysis and a proprietary Waratah ESG scoring methodology,” said Jason Landau, Portfolio Manager. “Unique to our strategy is that we can go both long and short: rewarding companies with good ESG practices and scores while shorting those with negative attributes.”

“Year-to-date the fund has been extremely resilient protecting capital and posting positive returns in line with our expectations,” said Blair Levinsky, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Waratah. “A long-short approach to ESG investing allows us to continue with the portfolio construction and approach to risk control which we have become known for, while at the same time allows us to avoid excessive concentration often associated with ESG funds due to traditional divestment of offending sectors.”

Waratah Alternative Equity Income Fund

In October, Waratah launched the Waratah Alternative Equity Income Fund, the firm’s first liquid alternative mutual fund.

The fund focuses on investing in companies that exhibit strong cash-flow generation. They should also have a history of prudent capital allocation, and an ability to grow or maintain cash flows. Moreover, it targets attractive risk-adjusted returns through research-driven stock selection, with a focus on bottom-up fundamental research, and active portfolio construction.

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