NEWS
24 Aug 2016 - Fund Review: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund July 2016
BENNELONG TWENTY20 AUSTRALIAN EQUITIES FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund.
- The Bennelong Twenty20 Fund invests in ASX listed stocks, combining an indexed position in the Top 20 stocks with an actively managed portfolio of stocks outside the Top 20. Construction of the ex-top 20 portfolio is fundamental, bottom-up, core investment style, biased to quality stocks, with a structured risk management approach.
- Mark East, the Fund's Chief Investment Officer, and Keith Kwang, Director of Quantitative Research have over 50 years combined market experience. Bennelong Funds Management (BFM) provides the investment manager, Bennelong Australian Equity Partners (BAEP) with infrastructure, operational, compliance and distribution services.
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
23 Aug 2016 - NWQ Fiduciary Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund aims to produce returns, after management fees and expenses of between 8% to 11% p.a. over rolling five-year periods. Furthermore, the Fund aims to achieve these returns with volatility that is a fraction of the Australian equity market, in order to smooth returns for investors. |
Manager Comments | The portfolio's Beta managers, utilising a range of long/short equity strategies attributed +1.02% for the month, capturing a significant market upside. Alpha managers also performed strongly, contributing +0.95% for the month. The portfolio continues to have an overweight allocation to the Alpha or market neutral strategies. Click below to read the latest Fund's Report. |
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23 Aug 2016 - Fund Review Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund July 2016
PENGANA ABSOLUTE RETURN ASIA PACIFIC FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund.
- The Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund ("PARAP") was established in 2008 by portfolio managers Antonio Meroni and Vikas Kumra. The Fund is a feeder fund into a Cayman Islands AUD share class fund.
- The Fund invests both long and short in Asia Pacific equities, including in Australian and New Zealand, after a stock specific "event" has either occurred or been announced and the portfolio aims to be uncorrelated to the underlying equity markets. A combination of the Manager's experience, thorough research and continuous back- testing identify the most attractive of these events.
- Risk controls include limits on individual positions as well as gross and net exposure. Limits are in place for option exposure and cash borrowing, with stop loss limits on individual positions. Overall the manager is looking to derive returns from the event strategies as opposed to any currency or market exposures.
- Since inception, the Fund has an annualised return of 8.70% p.a., compared to the AFM's Asia Pacific Index of 5.16%. The Fund has achieved this with lower volatility of 6.37% (Index 11.94%).
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
22 Aug 2016 - Fund Review: QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund July 2016
QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund.
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund;
- Qato Capital is a Melbourne-based boutique fund manager backed by single family office, Larkfield Funds Management.
- Qato has a systematic, market-neutral strategy which invests exclusively in S&P/ASX 100 stocks.
- The QATO Capital's Q-score process captures and quantifies six broad fundamental factors, which assess multiple underlying sub-categories. Those companies with the top score (quality companies) are included in the "long" portfolio, those with the lowest score are sold short.
- The Fund seeks to preserve capital and maximises absolute returns through active and constant risk management, targeting monthly a net market exposure of 0% to hedge broader market risks through 30 S&P/ASX-100 positions (15 long & 15 short equally-weighted positions).
- Qato Capital's process is entirely systematic - stock selection and risk management are employed in a rules-based approach. The Fund employs no financial leverage/gearing to purchase securities, no derivatives, and no financial products to imitate leverage.
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
22 Aug 2016 - Signature Quantitative Fund
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Fund Overview | SQF has been established to profit from anomalies surrounding event driven, behavioural & factor based structural market inefficiencies which generate significant profits and are uncorrelated & persistent over time. Specific strategies such as dividend arbitrage, index addition and deletion, tax year end, capital raisings, among other strategies are used by the Fund. The Fund's initial focus is on investing in Australian and New Zealand markets. |
Manager Comments | Capital Raisings continued its outperformance recently as the capital markets continued to provide numerous opportunities and SQF's market exposure also contributed to performance. Alpha Capture underperformed (contribution of 2.2% to the fund's returns) during July's market rally. The Fund had a gross exposure of 277% (Long 166% and Short -116%) and net exposure of 55% Click the link below to view the latest Monthly report. |
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19 Aug 2016 - Totus Alpha Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund is a long/short investment fund principally investing in listed entities, commodities, futures and options in Australia and internationally. The Fund is not a market neutral fund and accordingly may switch between net long positions and net short positions. The Fund may use short sales and derivatives. Gearing may be used to enhance returns and the Fund may be geared in excess of 100% of the Fund's Net Asset Value. There is a limit to net exposure of 150%. |
Manager Comments | At month-end, the fund had a net exposure of 39.7% and a gross exposure of 277.0%. The fund held 134 positions (67 long and 67 short) that were diversified across multiple investment themes. Top contributors were long positions in Smartgroup, Alphabet and Hansen. Biggest detractors were short positions in Independence Group, Fortescue and Metcash. Click below to read the latest Fund's Monthly Report. |
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19 Aug 2016 - Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund is managed as one portfolio but comprises and combines two separately managed exposures: 1. An investment in the top 20 stocks of the markets, which the Fund achieves by taking an indexed position in the S&P/ASX 20 Index; and 2. An investment in the stocks beyond the S&P/ASX 20 Index. This exposure is managed on an active basis using a fundamental core approach. The Fund may also invest in securities expected to be listed on the ASX, securities listed or expected to be listed on other exchanges where such securities relate to ASX-listed securities.Derivative instruments may be used to replicate underlying positions and hedge market and company specific risks. The companies within the portfolio are primarily selected from, but not limited to, the S&P/ASX 300 Accumulation Index. The Fund typically holds between 40-55 stocks and thus is considered to be highly concentrated. This means that investors should expect to see high short-term volatility. The Fund seeks to achieve growth over the long-term, therefore the minimum suggested investment timeframe is 5 years. |
Manager Comments | The Fund benefited over the month from strong share price gains in Aristocrat Leisure, Ramsay Health Care, and Domino's Pizza Enterprises. For the month of July, the sector exposure of the actively managed portion of the portfolio deviated from the S&P/ASX 300 Accumulation Index to be overweight in the Discretionary and Health Care sectors and underweight in the REITs and Materials sectors. The investment team believes that the companies in which they are invested are well positioned and increasingly adding to smaller positions as they gain confidence in their outlook and find new stocks in which to invest. Click below to read the latest Fund Report. |
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18 Aug 2016 - Fund Review: APN Asian REIT Fund July 2016
APN Asian REIT Fund
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the APN Asian REIT Fund.
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund;
- APN is an ASX-listed fund manager specialising in property investment, with an investment team of six. Established in 1996, APN now has FUM of $A2.4bn including four REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) funds.
- The APN Asian REIT Fund (Fund) is a property securities fund that invests in a quality portfolio of Asian REITs, listed on the securities exchanges of the Asian Region, with the ability to hold some cash and fixed interest investments.
- The Fund aims to deliver a competitive yield with lower risk than the market. The underlying stocks are selected based on a highly disciplined investment approach that focuses on the fundamentals and number of valuation approaches. The universe can include new IPO's, other corporate actions take place and / or corporate governance improvements at country or REIT level bring new stocks into focus.
- The Fund provides access to a wide spread of property-based revenue streams that are specifically analysed, selected and weighted with the aim of delivering strong and sustainable income returns. The Fund is an unhedged product.
- APN's Asian REIT Fund invests in a portfolio of 25-40 listed Asian REITs with a core philosophy of investing in properties with sustainable rental income streams.
- The Fund has delivered an annualised return of 17.39% p.a., since inception in July 2011 with a standard deviation of 9.42% p.a. The Sharpe and Sortino ratios are 1.46 and 2.73 respectively.
18 Aug 2016 - Affluence Investment Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund does not invest directly into any asset class, rather, it invests in investment managers which satisfy Affluence Funds Management's investment criteria; its investment philosophy is based on a formula developed by CEO/Portfolio Manager Daryl Wilson since the start of his career in 1999. The Fund targets total returns of at least 5% above inflation over rolling 3 year periods with volatility of returns less than 50% of the ASX200 Index. The Fund also aims to provide investors with a distribution yield of at least 5% p.a. Finally, the Fund aims to outperform the Australian stock market (S&P/ASX 200 Accumulation Index) by at least 5% in any year in which that index delivers a negative return. To ensure appropriate diversity of managers and limit the potential for conflicts of interest, no more than 20% of the Fund will be invested with any one manager. Affluence seeks to achieve the Funds' investment objective by choosing attractively priced investments overseen by quality managers. The Fund uses a number of processes to identify potential investments including quantitative screens for investments which meet historical performance, volatility and other criteria. They also use a number of external researchers and information sources to assist in this process. |
Manager Comments | Amongst the 22 unlisted Fund investments, 21 delivered a positive return for the month. The best returns came from their investments in long/short funds and the Baker Steel Gold Fund. The Fund made additional investments into two of their existing holdings and also added two new investments, Bronte Capital and Lanyon. The 22 unlisted funds represented 58% of the total portfolio. Another 17 listed investment companies and other securities represented 16% of the portfolio. The rest of the balance (26%) was held in cash. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's report. |
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17 Aug 2016 - Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund will usually hold 40 to 80 positions and will be well diversified across the various event strategies. In keeping with the absolute return focus the Manager will eliminate market risk where appropriate by hedging market and foreign currency risks. Since inception the Fund has averaged a net equity market exposure of ~10%. Sizing of an investment position will depend on the expected risk adjusted returns while taking account the liquidity and volatility of the stock. In addition, the maximum potential loss on any one position should be greater than 0.5% of the NAV and the position should not exceed 30% participation of stressed volume assuming a $200m NAV. Other criteria considered are ability to hedge and the availability of pair candidates as well as the average bid-ask size. For M&A strategies average long position is 3 to 5.5% and average short position 2 to 5%. |
Manager Comments | Negative developments continued to affect the M&A sub-strategy, in particular, the state directed 'SOE Reform' deal in West China Cement (2233 HK, WCC). The Stub Strategy remained robust posting a strong contribution to the overall performance of 87 bps. The two stub trades in Thailand alone contributed the majority of this, namely Quality Houses (QH TB) and Advanced (ADVANC TB) / versus Intouch (INTUCH TB). Within the Fund's directional strategy, the Earnings Surprise strategy contributed favourably to overall performance. The opportunity set in Asia remains robust, and reflecting this, the Fund's gross exposure remained high at 241%, whilst equity beta risk was kept low. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
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