Union Bancaire Privee (UBP), which was founded in 1969, has been investing in hedge funds since the 1970s when Campbell was amongst the pioneers of systematic investing strategies. “Our first allocations were to global macro and long/short equity. Quant allocations started in the 1990s,” says Fredrik Langenskiold, Senior Investment Specialist for Alternatives in UBP’s London office.

UBP has been recommending both UCITS and non-UCITS funds to its clients for decades. “After the GFC European clients developed a preference for regulated funds and to meet that demand we created the U-ACCESS UCITS platform in 2014 to onboard managers in which we have high conviction. Fund selection is at the core as we only run one internal hedge fund strategy,” says Langenskiold, who has been with UBP since 2003.

“After the GFC European clients developed a preference for regulated funds and to meet that demand we created the U-ACCESS UCITS platform in 2014 to onboard managers in which we have high conviction.”

UBP has known Campbell for more than 20 years and has allocated to various Campbell strategies and vehicles over the years. UBP’s funds of hedge funds can allocate to external vehicles or to U-ACCESS single hedge funds. A management fee rebate at the UBP level avoids “double dipping” and means that allocating internally does not generate any incremental revenue, though it does slightly reduce fee costs for investors in UBP’s funds of funds.

UBP’s UCITS discussion with Campbell started in 2018 and the product launched in June 2020. “We were especially interested in multi-strategy quantitative funds because the volatility of more directional funds was too high for our experience with UCITS,” recalls Langenskiold.

Multi-strategy advantages 

Embedded leverage is key advantage of the structure in managing volatility. “As a fund selector we would need to pick four individual strategies with volatility above 25% to reach a 10% portfolio volatility target. Owning funds with 25% volatility would be difficult as they could be expected to have drawdowns of 35% or more,” points out Langenskiold. 

A design benefit of a multi-strategy approach is that the four strategies follow different return cycles and the low correlation has generated more stable returns and a higher Sharpe ratio of 0.9 to 1. “Over time all four strategies have made similar contributions, which have been additive and uncorrelated. In 2021 equity market neutral did very well for example,” says Langenskiold.

Centralised risk management and netting of trades to reduce trading costs are additional features of combining strategies in one vehicle. Performance fee netting is another bonus: investors only pay performance fees if overall performance is positive. 

A more diversified quantitative approach 

Traditionally CTAs were directional but now roughly 50% of risk in UBP’s Campbell UCITS fund is in relative value strategies, which can perform well in different periods. “A standalone trend following CTA made sense in 2022 but probably would not in most years. In choppy markets such as 2025 or in low volatility periods such as 2010-2020 with high correlation between asset classes it was hard to find strong performance in either discretionary macro or trend strategies. In contrast shorter term macro and quantitative equity strategies including equity dispersion can perform well in rangebound choppy markets,” observes Langenskiold.

“A standalone trend following CTA made sense in 2022 but probably would not in most years.”

Traditionally CTAs traded the big macro markets including equity indices. Campbell trades single stocks as well, which brings additional diversification. “Trading equities long and short on a market and beta neutral basis generates additive alpha that is differentiated from the other models,” says Langenskiold.

Traditional trend following CTAs traded over medium to long term timeframes of weeks to months. Campbell has also developed shorter term systems (though not high frequency trading) trading from intraday to two weeks, which are faster than the three month average for the momentum bucket. “The short term bucket has done especially well since Covid as markets got faster. In April 2025 the short term strategy was the biggest winner as medium term models found it harder to catch the moves,” notes Langenskiold. 

“The short term bucket has done especially well since Covid as markets got faster.”

The short term models have also helped to navigate market reversals that have been challenging for some quantitative funds. “In April 2025 our intramonth peak to trough drawdown was only between 1.5% and 2%. We ended April up 0.80% even though the momentum sleeve was negative. It has been a challenging environment for medium to long term trend following,” observes Langenskiold. “The product have also navigated the Japanese “Yenmaggedon” pivot in August 2024 and the mini- banking crisis around SVB and Credit Suisse in March 2023,” he points out.

UCITS Structuring and quant funds 

The U-Access UCITS differs from Campbell’s flagship multi-strategy product in avoiding commodities and non-US equities but these have made fairly minimal contributions to overall performance, according to Langenskiold. Meanwhile the UCITS offers daily liquidity.

There have never been any other quantitative funds on the U-ACCESS platform, which currently hosts three long short equity and two long short credit funds following a discretionary approach. “We could contemplate onboarding other quantitative funds in two situations: if Campbell ran out of capacity for this strategy or if we found one that was very uncorrelated and differentiated. The platform generally avoids competing strategies,” explains Langenskiold.

ESG

Though the fund makes disclosures under SFDR article 6, it still observes UBP’s firm level exclusions list. Makers of controversial weapons including cluster munitions and land mines (which are being used in Ukraine) as well as nuclear weapons are excluded along with thermal coal and tobacco. Firms violating international norms and standards can also be ruled out while various controversies are considered on a case by case basis. UBP has an ESG committee to oversee the exclusions. UBP became a UNPRI signatory in March 2012, some years earlier than many other firms.

Distribution in the Nordics 

In the Nordics, the fund is registered for public distribution in Sweden and Finland. The investor groups include banks, asset managers and family offices.

While 2022 generally saw strong inflows for systematic funds this product has continued to garner strong inflows in 2023, 2024 and 2025. 

This article features in the “Systematic Strategies and Quant Trading” publication below: