Fairfield Greenwich Group, the New York-based fund of funds and alternatives manager, has launched its first Australian-domiciled fund.

The Australian unit trust, which will use Equity Trustees as its responsible entity, is based on a new global futures strategy, which will be capped for capacity. While both Fairfield Greenwich and its underlying managers have had some discrete mandate clients from Australia, this is the first time the group has set up a local trust. The trust is targeting high net worth individuals, family offices and smaller institutions. Jeremy Norton, a senior vice president from New York, said the trust would give investors “access to one of the most talented and experienced hedge fund groups in our industry”. He has been speaking with potential clients and advisers in Australia since last week. Fairfield Greenwich was founded in 1983 and offers various single-manager single-strategy funds, multi-strategy funds and FoFs. It has about $US15.5 billion. The firm is owned by 17 of its 110 employees.