Quebec City-based Industrial Alliance and Financial Services Inc. (IA Financial) has launched a new segregated fund that invests in companies “benefitting from technological advances,” the company announced Monday.
IA Financial’s Thematic Innovation Fund is a U.S. equity fund that invests in companies across all sectors that are profiting from technological change or “prospering in a perpetually changing environment.” It is managed by Jean-Pierre Chevalier, portfolio manager at IA Investment Management.
“The investment strategy focuses not strictly on investing in technology itself, but instead on targeting companies that are benefitting from changes caused by technological innovations and avoiding those that will be negatively impacted,” Chevalier says in a statement.
The fund’s four main investment themes are: intelligent connectivity, future energy, industrial digitisation and next generation genomics, as well as 40 related sub-themes. The 100 to 120 securities that make up the fund were strategically chosen from over 700 companies that benefit from the influence of the four investment themes chosen.
IA says the fund has performed better than its reference index (S&P 500) with similar risk. The management expense ratio starts at 2.2%.
This fund is available in the Classic 75/75 and 75/100 series of the IAG Savings and Retirement Plan as well as My Education+.