(Bloomberg) -- AQR Capital Management LLC is making its mark in the buzzy world of multistrategy investing, notching a 13.5% gain this year through April in its $1.2 billion Apex offering. 

Launched in 2020, the quant manager has netted returns riding decisive price trends across futures markets in the higher-for-longer interest rate era, while placing long and short bets across the stock market among other trades, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to comment citing client confidentiality.

Apex now manages more than $1 billion, the person said, up from $560 million in January — split between private vehicles and a recently rebranded UCITS-governed fund, a common European investment product.

The Apex offering focuses on three core so-called investment sleeves. It comprises macro — which bets on multiple asset classes based on trading signals like economic data and price trends — and market-neutral stock picking, riding traditional factors and newer inputs like text-based analysis. It also looks for arbitrage opportunities, from convertible bonds to corporate mergers.

Diversification Trade

Earlier this year, the Apex offering was boosted by a $300 million allocation from an existing strategy. As rising rates fueled greater differentiation within stock markets and larger macro swings, Apex gained 11% in the first quarter and 16% in 2023, compared with 3.7% and 6.1% respectively in a PivotalPath index of multistrategy funds. 

The AQR vehicle is part of an expanding universe of funds that serve as one-stop shops comprising a variety of different strategies, and whose purveyors are distinguished by labels such as multimanager or pod shop and multistrategy.  

Dominated by the likes of Citadel and Millennium Management, the multistrategy industry at large now manages a record $704 billion in assets, according to data platform eVestment. 

Such pod shops are typically made up of dozens of semi-autonomous teams running a larger array of investing styles from quant-derived trading signals to long-short equities. In that sense, Apex — an offering aimed at institutional investors that combines a slew of longstanding AQR trades — remains distinct. Still like many other multistrategy players, it seeks to adjust allocations to investing styles in a timely way.

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