Boston-based Natixis Global Advisors has rolled out a pair of hedge fund beta replication funds managed by a finance professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The ASG Global Alternatives Fund is structured as a mutual fund for U.S. investors, currently available only in an institutional share class, with A and C share classes to follow. The ASG LASER Fund is set up as a sub-fund of the Natixis International Funds (Lux) I, a Luxembourg-domiciled UCITS fund available only to non-U.S. investors. Both funds use a proprietary quantitative model, set up by the AlphaSimplex Group, using forward contracts and other instruments to track the changing betas of a large group of single-manager hedge funds.

“This is a good time for investors to consider including a hedge fund beta replication fund in their portfolio,” Andrew Lo, the MIT professor, AlphaSimplex founder and portfolio manager of the two funds, said. “Beta replication funds seek to offer the diversification benefits of hedge funds—access to a broader set of asset classes and low correlation to traditional asset class—while avoiding some of the downsides of hedge funds, such as illiquidity, limited capacity and high fees.”