The Signet Group has announced it has reached an agreement with Wilshire Funds Management to provide enhanced-transparency absolute-return portfolio management service to their institutional clients.

Wilshire Funds Management will leverage its existing funds platform and accompanying tools to provide transparent due diligence and risk monitoring support for multi-manager absolute-return investment portfolios managed/advised by Signet. This will include:

• Portfolio risk analysis based on position-level information collected from all underlying funds
  
• Measurement and aggregation of portfolio exposures to various risk factors
  
• Investment guidelines compliance at individual manager level.
  

Signet portfolios selected for initial roll-out are based on two existing products:

• Signet Global Fixed Income Fund
  
• Signet Emerging Opportunities Fund
  

Larry Davanzo, President of Wilshire Associates, said, “We believe that this relationship with Signet will address a vital yet under-served place in alternative asset management where many institutional investors seek additional transparency, oversight and control but lack the necessary infrastructure to manage the process. Our managed alternatives platform (“MAP”) of risk and transparency services combined with Signet’s award-winning performance should make a compelling offering to the marketplace. They have a reputation as a premier firm with a global footprint, a well defined, scalable and repeatable investment process, and an innovative approach to risk management. We look forward to helping Signet with their delivery of a unique, robust and transparent offering to institutional investors.”

Robert Marquardt, founder and Chairman of Signet, said, “Our investors will benefit from Wilshire’s ability to provide measurement support for our risk management system based on position-level data, enhanced risk aggregation, and mandate compliance monitoring for the underlying funds in our portfolios, as well as from their exceptional knowledge base and network of manager relationships."