Artemis launches its first market neutral fund focused on UK equities
14 JUL, 2025
By Jose Luis Palmer from RankiaPro Europe
Artemis has announced the launch of the Artemis Atlas Fund, its first market neutral equity fund. Managed by Ambrose Faulks, the fund aims to deliver positive returns across market conditions through a long/short strategy with a low or neutral net market exposure. At least 51% of the portfolio will be invested in UK companies, with up to 49% allocated to developed international markets.
Strategy and performance objectives
The Artemis Atlas Fund targets double-digit annualised returns by balancing long and short positions.
The structure of the fund, designed to remain market neutral, is intended to generate returns in a wide range of macroeconomic conditions. This does not imply steady monthly growth, but rather the expectation of a positive return over a rolling 12-month period.
It’s important to highlight that the objective of this fund is to minimise correlation with equity markets. Investors rely on our ability to identify mispricings and manage risk effectively.
Ambrose Faulks, Fund Manager at Artemis.
The fund seeks to minimise correlation with equity markets, focusing on pricing inefficiencies.
Short positions will primarily be implemented via pair trading using contracts for difference (CFDs), offering operational efficiency. The fund may use leverage, with gross exposure typically ranging between 100% and 300% of net asset value. The long book will consist of 25–40 high-conviction stocks, while the short book will include a greater number of positions with smaller individual exposures.
Team support and market context
Faulks, who also co-manages the Artemis UK Select Fund with Ed Legget, will work closely with Artemis’s UK and global equity teams, sharing ideas with over 30 investment professionals. He joined Artemis in 2013 after nearly a decade as an equity analyst at a UK hedge fund, specialising in financial services and capital-intensive industries, and refining his skills in short selling.
Atlas builds on Artemis’s established expertise in managing UK and international equity funds, offering investors a differentiated alternative. Unlike traditional long-only funds, it aims to deliver consistent, positive returns regardless of market direction, generating pure alpha through stock selection and offering protection against market downturns.
Greg Jones, Artemis’s Head of Distribution
Faulks highlighted a shift in the macro environment post-quantitative easing: “The past ten-plus years of quantitative easing, which ended in 2022, made short selling more difficult due to loose monetary policy. Now, however, capital is more expensive, forcing the market to scrutinise companies’ investment policies more carefully.” He concluded: “Volatility is expected to rise, and stock dispersion will likely increase. Returns will be more driven by individual stock selection and less by overall market beta.”
The Artemis Atlas Fund has an Ongoing Charges Figure (OCF) of 0.87% for the retail share class and applies a 20% performance fee on returns exceeding the Bank of England base rate, subject to a high-water mark.
