Alternative Investment Awards 2016

www.wealthandfinance-intl.com 73 Fund Advisors LLC Company: Pacific Life Fund Advisors LLC Name: Ryan Smith, Client Portfolio Manager Email: [email protected] Web Address: www.pacificfunds.com Address: 700 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach, CA 92660 Telephone: (949) 219-4534 AI16058 Pacific Life Pacific Life Fund Advisors LLC is a California based investment advisory firm offering a wide range of investment solutions. We spoke to Ryan Smith, Client Portfolio Manager, to find out more. For over ten years, we have provided global multi-asset solutions through expertise in asset allocation and manager due diligence, and to- day we manage approximately $38 billion in assets. Our integrated team of investment professionals specializes in applying our global framework to portfolios we manage across active and passive, alternative and tradi- tional, and strategic and dynamic investments. We manage alternative and more traditional strategies for both retail and institutional clients. Our investment approach is to maintain independent teams respon- sible for Asset Allocation, Manager Research, and Risk Management and then integrate them through our Investment Committee. The Investment Committee then develops robust views that form our global framework and applies the framework to each portfolio’s investment goal. Specifically, the Asset Allocation team develops target models through investment views rooted in a combination of quantitative and fundamental analysis. Manager Research constructs the portfolio by allocating among managers to align with the target model and to seek to maximize alpha 1 . Manager Research also travels the world to seek out the managers the team believes to be the best fit for each asset class we utilize. The Risk Management team ensures that the portfolio does not have any unintended exposures by providing scenario analysis and stress testing. The collaboration of these independent teams plays a crucial role at all stages of the investment process. Our approach to alternatives allocation is innovative among multi-strat- egy or multi-manager alternative funds. Many firms take the approach of putting together alternative managers in a “bundled alpha” package, meaning they select only those managers they believe will generate pure alpha. This approach can have difficult-to-predict results as manager alphas can sometimes be negatively correlated and cancel out one another or, inversely, become more positively correlated in broad sell-offs. By contrast, our objective is to balance alpha and beta 2 across market cycles, which emphasizes the careful selection of absolute return strategies balanced with asset classes suited for different phases of the market cycle. This gives us greater consistency of returns and more control over drawdown and correlation, making it attractive for an investor looking to lower the risk and increase the return potential of their existing portfolio. 1 Alpha is a measure of an investment’s performance compared to a benchmark. 2 Beta is a measure of the volatility of a security or portfolio in com- parison to the market as a whole. Best Total Return Diversified Fund of Funds: Pacific Funds Diversified Alternatives (PLDLX) & Most Innovative Fund of Funds Portfolio Manager – California