Research Affiliates has announced the launch of the Systematic Global Active Equity (SAE) Fund, a UCITS fund domiciled in Ireland introduced by Russell Investments.

The fund has leveraged a proprietary Research Affiliates systematic investment model that ranks investment opportunities across global equity markets.

Research Affiliates said that SAE Fund is a “systematic, process-driven” active equity strategy that aims to prioritise deep-value stocks with strong fundamentals, mitigate risk through quality and momentum adjustments, and maintain liquidity and diversification through optimisation constraints.

Founder and chairman of Research Affiliates, Rob Arnott, said the fund represents a “new evolution” of its partnership with Russell Investments, and a powerful extension of its commitment to systematic investing.

“By combining value, quality, and momentum insights in a rigorous rules-based framework, we aim to deliver strong outcomes for investors while maintaining discipline through all market environments” Arnott said.

Head of EMEA at Russell Investments, Jim Leggate, commented: “This launch highlights how we can leverage our UCITS platform to provide investors with efficient access to differentiated strategies.

“By combining our implementation expertise with our governance and oversight with Research Affiliates’ systematic equity model, we aim to deliver a solution that meets the needs of a wide range of clients across the region.”

Chief investment officer of Equity Strategies, Que Nguyen, added: “The fundamental case for value outperformance in the coming years remains strong, but a more selective approach that seeks to avoid value traps may be warranted.

“Screening out characteristics that signal value traps is a simple way to achieve this. By purging problem stocks using momentum and quality signals, returns improve across all but the most expensive companies.”

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