Pioneer Alternative Investments is to launch a hedge fund product available to retail investors, designed to focus on Asian equities.

PAI, part of Pioneer Investments, the Italian-owned asset management firm, is launching Pioneer Absolute Return Equity Asia. The fund is a collaboration between PAI and the investment firm, Structured Invest of Luxembourg. Structured as a UCITS III fund, the product can be bought and sold across European Union national borders and be sold to private investors.

The offer period for the fund started 30 April 2008 and runs to 30 May 2008. The formal launch date is 3 June and the fund is available in euro and US dollar share classes. The fund is available for public distribution in
Luxembourg, to be followed shortly by
Italy,
Spain,
France,
Germany and

Austria with the probability of being registered in other countries.

The underlying hedge fund strategy achieves its objective through a predominantly Asian equity long/short approach based on a thematic and fundamental bottom up method rather than quantitative.  Manuele Moi, principal fund manager and Adrian Doyle, deputy fund manager, will manage the portfolio.