State Street Global Advisors and Bridgewater Associates are joining forces to offer retail investors access to Bridgewater’s All Weather risk parity hedge fund strategy — a mainstay for institutional investor allocations for decades.
A Nov. 19 regulatory filing said SSGA will serve as investment adviser of the SPDR Bridgewater All Weather ETF, with Bridgewater acting as the strategy’s sub-adviser. A spokeswoman for SSGA declined to provide details regarding how the economics of the business would be structured.
The filing said based on a model portfolio provided by Bridgewater, the ETF will invest in line with the Westport, Conn.-based hedge fund giant’s proprietary strategic asset allocation strategy, putting together a mix of long and short exposures to equities, fixed income and commodities “designed with the goal of generating consistent returns across different economic environments.”
Anna Paglia, SSGA’s chief business officer, in a joint news release, pointed to Bridgewater’s 40-year history of serving sophisticated institutional global investors, saying her team is “excited that this strategic relationship will now bring that portfolio construction expertise to retail investors as well.”
Bridgewater co-CIO Karen Karniol-Tambour, in the same news release, noted that with global investors increasingly focused on portfolio resiliency, “we are excited to broaden access to our approach” in tandem with SSGA.
The firms noted a growing appetite for strategies such as Bridgewater’s All Weather by institutional and retail investors alike, with an SSGA report finding 45% of institutional investors looking to increase their allocations to alternatives over the coming 12 months and 41% of financial advisers planning to advise their clients to do the same.
SSGA reported $4.73 trillion in assets under management as of Sept. 30, 2024. Bridgewater reported AUM of $112.5 billion as of Dec. 31, 2023.
Bridgewater was founded by Ray Dalio, who has since retired from the firm.
