Scientific Beta

Financial Times: "The EDHEC-Risk Institute has unveiled plans to revolutionise index-based investing by offering sophisticated alternative benchmarks for free. The move will pitch the Nice-based research body into direct competition with commercial providers of financial indices."

Financial Times 23/04/2013

"(…) The EDHEC-Risk Institute has unveiled plans to revolutionise index-based investing by offering sophisticated alternative benchmarks for free. The move will pitch the Nice-based research body into direct competition with commercial providers of financial indices. EDHEC-Risk director Noël Amenc said he intends to become the leading alternative index provider within five years. “Our desire is to shake things up and to make sure that the smart beta index market becomes more transparent, that the risks of the strategies are better documented, and that investments are made in the best cost conditions,” said professor Amenc.

EDHEC started offering 30 “smart beta” indices for free on April 15 via a dedicated web platform as part of an initiative to promote transparency within index based investing. The institute intends to expand its offering to 100 free indices over the next 12 months covering a range of smart beta benchmarks. Tomas Franzén, chief investment strategist at AP2, the Swedish pension fund, said EDHEC’s initiative would make an important contribution to the development of better constructed equity portfolios. (...)"