FTAdviser.com

Advertising

Eight funds have received approval from the CSSF and are sitting under the Melchior Selected Trust Ucits III umbrella.

They follow on from the launch of the MST: Pakistan Opportunities fund and the recent switch in domicile of the $76m (£38m) Indian Opportunities fund from Mauritius.

They include an Indian Advantage fund, which has been designed to offer investors beta-focused exposure to the Sensex30 and was scheduled to go live shortly after Indian Opportunities was reorganised in April. Its launch was delayed as DSP feared shaky investor sentiment would result in a decreased appetite for India-facing offerings.

The seven other vehicles waiting in the Melchior pipeline are entitled Emerging Europe Opportunities, Asian Large Cap, Euro Global Opportunities, Euro Global Balanced, European Large Cap, China Opportunities and Asian Small Cap. Their launches would mark a major push by DSP into the niche emerging markets space, providing UK retail investors with access to specific parts of various markets.

Magnus Spence, partner and head of distribution at DSP, said so far only the funds' names had been finalised.

He said: "All of these are projects we have been looking at, and we have the names registered with the CSSF, but none of them is even approaching development at this stage. We look at a range of options at any point in time.

"You need to plan for the future and see what investors might want, and to make yourself more efficient for when the time is right to launch."

Including Indian Opportunities and Pakistan Opportunities, the Melchior Selected Trust Sicav houses 13 live funds that offer exposure to Asia, Japan, North America, Canada and the UK. Should the latent funds be activated, the Sicav will swell to 21 open-ended sub-funds.

The firm's announcement of its Pakistan Opportunities product last week, that is managed in conjunction with Karachi-based group KASB Funds, heralded one of the first ventures by a UK retail house into India's neighbour.

DSP has offices in London, Mumbai, Hong Kong and New York, as well as affiliates in Tokyo and Canada. The firm runs in the region of $2.3bn in retail and institutional money, and runs suites of hedge funds and pooled pension funds alongside the Melchior Selected Trust range, which is dedicated to specialist equity products.