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Liontrust Asset Management is looking to launch global equity and UK and European absolute alpha equity products as it diversifies away from its long-only UK and European retail offerings.

Nigel Legge, chief executive at Liontrust, said the equity specialist would seek to use one of its existing strategies for the global product or develop a proprietary one by hiring new talent.

"Global is a natural next step for us," he said. "We would be interested to identify the right kind of individual or team that could fit here and locate a process."

He said Liontrust would develop any absolute alpha retail products in conjunction with its long-short equity hedge fund range.

"We have a research project going as to how we could build a UK hedge fund," he said. He explained "ideally" he would like to convert this into a UK absolute alpha fund for the retail sector.

He added he also planned to launch a UK retail version of Liontrust's European hedge fund strategy, although he did not give a timetable for any of these developments.

He was particularly cautious about the hiring schedule for the global product.

"We never have a deadline," he said. "Otherwise, we'll reach the point where we get the wrong team."

Mr Legge said it was important any new products had a proprietary Liontrust process.

"We've always thought it critical in the 14 years we've been operating."

Back-testing has shown the firm's value process works well in European markets, although Mr Legge said it was too early to say whether it was the best style for a global vehicle.

Liontrust has eight retail funds, seven of which are focused on UK equities and one that concentrates on Europe excluding the UK.

The UK team employs four investment styles: the Lang Approach, which looks at whether companies will beat earnings expectations; the Value Dynamic, which seeks value stocks with particularly high yields; the Large Cap Process, which searches for positive newsflow; and the Cross Report, which identifies companies with strong intellectual capital.

Jeremy Lang uses the Lang Approach on his £527.7m Liontrust First Growth fund and the Value Dynamic on his £794.9m Liontrust First Income fund.

William Pattisson employs the Large Cap Process on his £38.2m Liontrust First Large Cap and £1.1m Liontrust Focus 350 funds.

Anthony Cross uses the Cross Report on the £10m Liontrust First Opportunities fund and the £70.2m Liontrust Intellectual Capital trust.

Liontrust could develop a variant of any of these strategies for use on a UK absolute alpha strategy. It has already done this for the Cashflow Solution, which managers Gary West and James Inglis-Jones use to run their £46m Liontrust Continental Europe fund.

Mr Legge said in the hedge fund version they short management who tend to overstate earnings expectations and go long on companies whose executives tend to understate their future profits.