NEWS
5 Aug 2016 - Bennelong Long Short Equity Fund
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Fund Overview | In a typical environment the Fund will hold around 70 stocks comprising 35 pairs. Each pair contains one long and one short position each of which will have been thoroughly researched and are selected from the same market sector. Whilst in an ideal environment each stock's position will make a positive return, it is the relative performance of the pair that is important. As a result the Fund can make positive returns when each stock moves in the same direction provided the long position outperforms the short one in relative terms. However, if neither side of the trade is profitable, strict controls are required to ensure losses are limited. The Fund uses no derivatives and has no currency exposure. The Fund has no hard stop loss limits, instead relying on the small average position size per stock (1.5%) and per pair (3%) to limit exposure. Where practical pairs are always held within the same sector to limit cross sector risk, and positions can be held for months or years. The Bennelong Market Neutral Fund, with same strategy and liquidity is available for retail investors. |
Manager Comments | Performance was mostly concentrated for the month, with the top pair (long Bluescope/ Short Sims Metal) as the standout contributor. The rest of the portfolio was evenly mixed with positive contributions from pair positions in the industrial and healthcare sectors offset by pairs in the financials and infrastructure / utilities sectors. The main portfolio change over the month involved exiting the position in Caltex. Click below to read the Fund Manager's commentary and market outlook. |
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5 Aug 2016 - Meme Australian Share Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund's investment strategy seeks to identify low-risk entry opportunities and then build positions in these stocks. Once established in the portfolio, individual stock holdings are maintained for as long as their long-term upward trend remains intact and while they continue to make positive contributions to portfolio growth. Positions are reduced and ultimately closed out as their trends become exhausted or as their relative long-term performance against the broad market weakens. The Fund believes that longer time frame investments also provide a number of advantages. The effect of false signals and 'noise' which attend shorter term time frames is mitigated by only attending to signals which are confirmed by our longer term assessments. Also, the Fund gains exposure to the more expansive price trends which can last for months and years, allowing dividends and distributions received during this time to further enhance portfolio returns. |
Manager Comments | The five most positive contributors to the fund's July performance were Millennium Mining, Resolute Mining, Dacian Gold, Infigen Energy and Cardinal Resources, while the five most negative contributors were Syrah Resources, Antipa Minerals, Orocobre Limited, Galaxy Resources and Redflow Limited. The Fund increased its holding in the Consumer Discretionary, Industrials, Material and Telecommunications sectors and reduced its exposure to the Property, Consumer Staples, Financials and Utilities sectors. At month end, the total number of portfolio stocks reduced to 87 holdings and portfolio cash at approximately 1%. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's commentary on the Fund. |
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3 Aug 2016 - Fund Review: Insync Global Titans Fund June 2016
INSYNC GLOBAL TITANS FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Insync Global Titans Fund.
We would like to highlight the following:
- The Fund's unit price decreased by 1.45% in June. The performance was driven by positive contributions from our holdings in Medtronic, Mead Johnson Nutrition, BAT, Nestle and Unilever. The main negative contributors were PayPal, Sanofi, Visa and Microsoft.
- The Global Titans Fund invests in a concentrated portfolio of 15-30 stocks, targeting exceptional, large cap global companies with a strong focus on dividend growth and downside protection.
- Portfolio selection is driven by a core strategy of investing in companies with sustainable growth in dividends, high returns on capital, positive free cash flows and strong balance sheets.
- Emphasis on limiting downside risk is through extensive company research, the ability to hold cash and long protective index put options.
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
2 Aug 2016 - Fund Review: Supervised Global Income Fund June 2016
SUPERVISED GLOBAL INCOME FUND
Attached is AFM's updated Fund Review on the Supervised Global Income Fund (SGIF).
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund:
- The Supervised Global Income Fund (previously Supervised High Yield Fund) has a 6-year track record investing in fixed interest investments. The Investment strategy aims to deliver returns with zero correlation to equity markets by investing in debt securities with minimal default probability and offering a premium return above the risk-free rate.
- The Fund is managed by Philip Carden whose experience in debt and capital markets spans over 33 years, including time with JB Were's Capel Court Securities and Macquarie Bank, where he was the Executive Director responsible for the Debt Markets Division.
- SHYF is an Alternative Income fund which invests in Global and Australian debt markets, with all foreign currency receivables hedged back to Australian dollars.
- The Fund utilises a top-down analysis of the economic environment and market to screen and identifies debt market opportunities which it believes offer low risk with high yield. The next stage is the development of a risk matrix and investment strategy, following which detailed research is undertaken on specific investment opportunities which meet the pre-defined criteria established in the investment strategy.
- Prior to approving an investment for the Fund, each potential investment is subject to two stress tests. The first of these is of credit and default risk, in which the investment is stress-tested to ensure that in a worst case economic environment it can repay 100% of its principal and interest obligations case scenario for the asset by examining the highest margin over the risk rate that the investment has previously experienced in a crisis situation. Any decline in value under the stress test that exceeds 10% of the Fund's value is avoided The second test examines market risk. In this case, Carden looks at the worst case scenario for the asset by examining the highest margin over the risk rate that the investment has previously experienced in a crisis situation. Any decline in value under the stress test that exceeds 10% of the Fund's value is avoided.
1 Aug 2016 - Newgate Real Estate and Infrastructure Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund's research use detailed analysis of the underlying assets integrated with financial analysis to determine a sustainable yield and fundamental DCF valuation for the security. Also the Fund believes in having a strong risk control framework. The Fund will also use trading strategies via rebalancing of core portfolio positions as well as taking advantage of shorter duration inefficiencies in markets caused by an imbalance in demand and supply for global REIT and Infrastructure securities. The Fund focuses on generating absolute returns after fees of 12 to 15% pa over the medium to long term. The long-short nature of the Fund combined with Newgate's rigorous investment process ensures returns generated by the Fund are largely independent of rising or falling markets. Newgate is focused on providing investment opportunities primarily within core, value-add, opportunistic and development sectors of direct property and across listed and unlisted real estate and infrastructure securities. The Fund's investment team consists of Tim Hannon, Campbell McComb, Darren Brusnahan, Nishant Narayanaswamy and Nicole Merrillees. |
Manager Comments | In a volatile market, the Fund reduced risk with a relatively small sector and stock positions, and high cash levels. Shopping Centres, Vicinity Centres, and APN Property Group all contributed positively to return. However, Aurizon Group, Estia Health, and Infigen Energy detracted from the performance. For June, the Fund averaged 21 positions plus cash and net long position (25%) over the month. Click Manager's Report to read more. |
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1 Aug 2016 - Fund Review Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund June 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 8.93% p.a., compared to the AFM's Asia Pacific Index of 4.75%. The Fund has achieved this with lower volatility of 6.38% (Index 11.95%).
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
29 Jul 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 19 unlisted Fund investments, the worst monthly result was -2.8%. More than half of the investments delivered positive performance. The LIC investments had a mixed month in June, but still outperformed the market by around 2.5%. The newly listed WAM Leaders Fund was a key positive contributor. The 19 unlisted funds represented 60% of the total portfolio. Another 17 listed investment companies and other securities represented 20% of the portfolio. The rest of the balance was held in cash. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's report. |
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28 Jul 2016 - Insync Global Titans Fund
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Fund Overview | Insync employs four simple screens to narrow the universe of over 40,000 listed companies globally to a focus group of high quality companies that it believes have the potential to consistently grow their profits and dividends. These screens are size of the company, balance sheet performance, valuation and dividend quality. Companies that pass this due diligence process are then valued using dividend discount models, free cash flow yield and proprietary implied growth and expected return models. The end result is a high conviction portfolio of typically 15-30 stocks. The principal investments will be in shares of companies listed on international stock exchanges (including the US, Europe and Asia). The Fund may also hold cash, derivatives (for example futures, options and swaps), currency contracts, American Depository Receipts and Global Depository Receipts. The Fund may also invest in various types of international pooled investment vehicles. At times, Insync may consider holding higher levels of cash if valuations are full and it is difficult to find attractive investment opportunities. When Insync believes markets to be overvalued, it may hold part of its resources in cash, or use derivatives as a way of reducing its equity exposure. Insync may use options, futures and other derivatives to reduce risk or gain exposure to underlying physical investments. The Fund may purchase put options on market indices or specific stocks to hedge against losses caused by declines in the prices of stocks in its portfolio. |
Manager Comments | The performance was driven by positive contributions from the holdings in Medtronic, Mead Johnson Nutrition, BAT, Nestle, and Unilever. The main negative contributors were PayPal, Sanofi, Visa, and Microsoft. The Fund hedged back its exposure to the UK prior to the Brexit vote with 16% of the Fund hedged back to Australian dollars. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager Report. |
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28 Jul 2016 - Fund Review: Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund June 2016
Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund;
- Jamieson Coote Bonds is a Melbourne-based Boutique Manager launched in December 2014.
- The Founders, Charles Jamieson and Angus Coote bring over 30 years of international experience dealing with central banks, hedge funds and real money managers.
- The Jamieson Coote Active Bond Fund is a long-only macroeconomic investment fund, investing in Australian Dollar denominated bonds backed by AAA and AA+ rated Government, Semi (State) Government and Supranational agencies.
- The Fund Objective is to out-perform the Bloomberg Australian Government Bond Index through active management in a sound risk-managed framework and usually holds around 20 bond securities of varying maturities.
27 Jul 2016 - Pengana PanAgora Absolute Return Global Equities Fund
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Fund Overview | PanAgora believes the best way to find opportunities in the global markets is to combine fundamental analysis with robust quantitative techniques in order to filter the investment universe and select the investments. The Fund invests primarily in listed equity securities from a global universe of developed markets and a select group of emerging market countries. The Fund's objective is to seek absolute returns by identifying and exploiting multiple inefficiencies that may exist in global equity markets. These inefficiencies are primarily exploited through the use of a long/short equity strategy which aims to construct a portfolio that is generally neutral to market movements. As such the performance of the investment strategy is largely independent of the market's performance. The Fund seeks to achieve its objective by using a diversified set of strategies that have low correlation to one another. In addition, because many of these strategies are designed to generate profit under different market conditions, their combination is expected to result in more stable returns over time than any individual strategy in and of itself. |
Manager Comments | Most of the losses are attributable to stock selection in the US portion of the long-term portfolio, contributing -2.98% to the month's return. The intermediate-term portfolio ended the month flat, while the short-term sleeve contributed positively with 0.17%. The Fund continues to be focused on stock selection and has re-optimised the portfolio away from the US and towards international. The Fund has also increased its allocation to small caps. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
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