Campbell is a systematic investment manager founded in 1972, the very same year UBP began investing in hedge funds, marking a parallel legacy of early innovation in alternative strategies.
Over five decades, Campbell has evolved from pioneering trend-following into a diversified suite of quantitative, research-driven strategies designed to navigate a broad set of market regimes. Thanks to the structural decorrelation of its strategies from traditional asset classes like equities and bonds, Campbell aims to deliver diversifying return streams that can perform when conventional portfolios struggle; 2022, in particular, served as a proof point for this diversification benefit, as many systematic macro and trend-following approaches proved resilient while both stocks and bonds declined.
Drawing on deep data science, robust risk management, and adaptive models, the firm seeks persistent, liquid, and transparent alternatives aligned with modern regulatory and liquidity standards, including daily-dealing and UCITS structures.
How the partnership started
When UBP AIS started to look for a systematic strategy to be onboarded into its alternative UCITS platform, Campbell quickly became the obvious candidate. The firm’s history, along with its multi-strategy approach, was a perfect fit, as it combines experience with the sort of stable and resilient investment profile clients are looking for.
Since June 2020, UBP and Campbell have cultivated this strong partnership that has steadily expanded in scope and reach. Today, Campbell’s strategies, available with daily liquidity and in a UCITS format, are among the largest liquid alternative offerings on UBP’s platform, underscoring the depth of collaboration and client demand. UBP offers these solutions widely across its network to a broad base of clients, both in-house (within UBP’s advisory and discretionary channels) and externally (to third-party distributors and institutional allocators).
The combination of Campbell’s systematic expertise and UBP’s global reach provides scalable access to decorrelated, regulator-friendly alternative return streams, helping clients enhance portfolio resilience and diversification, with 2022 standing out as a compelling demonstration of the strategy’s capacity to add value when traditional assets falter. We look forward to continuing to expanding this partnership and delivering value to our clients.
The proof is in the process
The strength and resilience of a process or an investment strategy is generally not measured over a short period of time and in specific markets conditions, but rather over a long-term period and across market cycles. This is exactly the objective of Campbell’s Absolute Return strategy. Uncorrelated to traditional markets, with a stable level of volatility. As markets evolve, the research team at Campbell constantly work to find new features and ideas to improve the strategy, without overreacting to specific market events.
Needless to say markets have been unpredictable since the beginning of 2026. However, as communicated previously, what we have noticed is a change in market dynamics compared to the second half of last year: the persistent decrease of volatility in fixed income and currencies has reverted and the dispersion in equities has increased. As a result, the opportunity set for the strategy has improved, with the four underlying strategies being positive so far in 2026. Looking at asset classes, Forex, Stock indices and Cash Equities have seen strong contributions as well, as shown in the below charts.
Figure 1 & 2. Strategy and asset class contributions YTD
Did you say adaptive?
In these rapidly changing markets, the key is to remain agile and adjust exposure as markets shift. This is exactly what we saw in March and April, with a sharp unpredicted drop, followed by a very sharp rebound. These abrupt unexpected changes can be challenging for managers focusing on past data to predict future market returns. This is why being adaptive, and having the ability to shift allocation from long to short quickly is very valuable. The strategy has been able to deliver on those features since the beginning of the year, navigating the volatile equity markets, particularly in March.
As mentioned above, the goal of Campbell’s Absolute Return strategy is to produce consistent returns while remaining uncorrelated to equities and bonds.
We believe that this investment approach should be considered as a strategic allocation in portfolio acting as diversifier to equities and bonds.
The opinions expressed herein are correct as at 18 May 2026 and are subject to change without notice. This information should not be relied upon by the reader as research or investment advice regarding any particular fund, strategy or security. Past performance is not a guide to current or future results. Any forecast, projection or target, where provided, is indicative only and is not guaranteed in any way.
The views and opinions expressed by fund managers (internal or external) may differ from the house view. They are shared for informational purposes and do not constitute investment advice or a recommendation.
