The $3 billion Perpetual Investments suite of multimanager funds has doubled its investment team in preparation for an expected $600 million investment in alternatives over the next two years.

Damien Webb, head of multimanager at Perpetual, said commitments had started in private equity, private real estate, and infrastructure. He said his funds were also on the brink of making an investment in hedge funds, pending an evaluation of the benefits of a hedge fund-of-funds against building an internal program of directly-accessed funds with an advisor. Ray King’s Sovereign Investment Research is assisting Perpetual with this evaluation. Perpetual’s multimanager funds expect to have $300 million in alternatives within a year, taking funds away from fixed interest, cash, and Australian equities. Depending on flows from private clients, that amount is hoped to be $600 million within two years, Webb said. The team has recruited an ex-Partners Group hedge fund analyst as a portfolio manager, and an analyst to focus on hedge fund strategy. Perpetual has created two alternatives pools, one to focus on growth and another to focus on defensive assets. Perpetual’s balanced multimanager fund will invest in both – with a target allocation to alternatives of around 15 per cent – but they will also be offered as individual products.