About Us
Pursuing Outcome-Oriented Strategies
“‘Outcome-orientation’ is an important maxim in today’s investment management community. This maxim signifies that financial assets ought to be managed in such a way as to generate outcomes desired by investors.” - Masao Matsuda, PhD
Outcome orientation represents a significant shift from the ubiquitous Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA). Under SAA, one’s performance is judged by how well one performs versus “the markets” or the benchmark. By contrast, the performance of outcome-orientation strategies is judged by how well a certain investment goal (or goals) is met.
There are several critical weaknesses in Strategic Asset Allocation. By far, the most challenging aspect of implementing SAA lies in predicting returns for asset classes in the relevant investment universe. Among the three parameters required for the mean-variance optimization, returns are known to be most difficult to predict; yet an optimization result is extremely sensitive to “expected returns.” Thus, a set of allocation weights based on SAA too often results in “garbage in, garbage out.”
Unlike SAA, Copernicus Investment and Risk Advisors seeks diversification in two important ways: (1) by addressing the adverse impact of high equity volatility which is known to affect equity and non-equity asset classes and investment strategies; and (2) by diversifying among sources of return-generating risk factors. To put it differently, Copernicus implements a new type of asset allocation that overcomes the deficiencies of strategic asset allocation through true diversification. Our performance goals are to dynamically achieve the maximum returns for investors within our risk targets.
Typical investment outcomes pursued by both individual and institutional investors include equity-risk hedge and inflation protection. By combining income-generating investments and the DFP Overlay, Fuji Fund is designed to deliver both these outcomes, while minimizing tail and downside risks that are too common in option-based hedging strategies and in high-income generating strategies. Fuji Funds’ risk goals are to keep drawdowns infrequent and be of short duration.
Masao Matsuda
CIO/Founder: Masao Matsuda, PhD, FRM, CAIA
Former Chief Investment Officer and Global Head of Multi-Asset Strategies (Nikko Asset Management, Tokyo and New York). Developed and expanded Nikko’s World Series Business and asset allocation funds which held the largest market share in Japan. He is a Chapter Executive of CAIA’s New York Chapter, as well as, a member of the advisory board for GARP's New York Chapter Masao has contributed a number of articles in Alternative Investment Analyst Review, in AllAboutAlpha, and in Portfolio for the Future, all published by the CAIA Association, as well as in GARP’s Risk Intelligence. Masao has created test items for FRM examinations for the past 15 years, and acted as a formal reviewer of 8 chapters of the FRM’s 2020 textbooks in “Financial Markets and Products” and “Valuation and Risk Models.” He received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Claremont Graduate University.
George Egan
CEO/Founder: George Egan, CAIA
Decades of varied experience in capital markets managing trading Bank Trading Desks, including Morgan Stanley as Head of FX Tokyo and later Hedge Fund Manager there, Chief Investment Officer Spencer Trask, and Portfolio Strategist for Illinois’ State 529 Plan. Additionally, Fund of Funds operator/manager. Former Member of CFA Institute and NY Society of Securities Analysts. B.S. Degree Georgetown University.