Columbia Threadneedle is considering measures to stem flows into its UK Absolute Alpha fund as capacity becomes a concern.
The fund, managed by Mark Westwood and Chris Kinder, had nearly £1bn in assets at the end of March, up from £373m a year earlier.
As the popularity and demand for absolute return funds continues, Threadneedle has said it will monitor flows into the fund, potentially applying “further measures” such as soft closure.
The firm has already stopped marketing the fund.
The portfolio, which launched in 2010, is benchmarked against three-month Libor and has returned 16 per cent over three years.
Columbia Threadneedle head of wholesale for Emea, Gary Collins, said: “Our priority is always to protect the interests of existing investors and we have ceased marketing activity and new client pitches over the past year to manage inflows.
“We are now monitoring new flows with the potential to apply further measures to limit demand if necessary to ensure the investment integrity of the fund is retained.”
An influx of flows into absolute return strategies has seen growing concern over fund houses’ ability to manage capacity.
Recently, Henderson insisted it still has capacity in its own UK Absolute Return fund. Manager Luke Newman, who runs the fund alongside Ben Wallace, said in January that the product had a notional capacity of $6.5bn to $6.7bn (£4.5bn to £4.7bn).
By April, total assets across the strategy, which encompasses offshore and onshore portfolios as well as the AlphaGen Octanis hedge fund, reached the $6.5bn mark according to FE figures.
