BlackRock has announced the launch of an absolute return fund as part of its BlackRock Strategic Funds range.

The Americas Diversified Absolute Return fund will launch towards the end of March and will be co-managed by Raffaele Savi and Travis Cooke.

The pair will invest at least 70 per cent of the portfolio, expected to contain between 2,000 and 3,000 stocks, in equities and equity-related securities of companies in the US, Canada and Latin America.

The asset manager said the Luxembourg-domiciled fund would seek to achieve alpha for investors regardless of market volatility and would also invest in derivatives in the hope of maximising returns.

It confirmed that the fund would adopt a similar strategy to the BlackRock European Diversified Equity Absolute Return fund, which has struggled against the Absolute Return sector, returning -5.97 per cent in the past year against an average of -2.36 per cent.

The new fund will have an initial charge of up to 5 per cent, and a 1.5 per cent annual management fee. It will also carry a performance fee of 20 per cent over a high watermark and be benchmarked against the three-month US dollar London Interbank Offer Rate (Libor).

Alex Hoctor-Duncan, BlackRock’s head of retail sales, said, 'Designed for investors seeking consistent absolute returns from a portfolio of long and synthetic short equity exposures in the Americas, the fund will offer reduced volatility and a lower correlation to other asset classes than that of traditional long-only equity funds.

He explained that the fund would provide investors with access to a broad range of fundamental, behavioural and technical investment themes covering different time horizons.

'The result will be a highly diverse and balanced portfolio seeking to achieve a positive absolute return for investors regardless of market movements.'

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is yet to be notified about the fund.