NEWS
28 Dec 2015 - KIS Asia Long Short Fund
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Fund Overview | Whilst the Fund's primary strategy is focused on long/short equities, the ability to retain discretionary powers to allocate across a number of other investment strategies is reserved. These strategies may include, but not be limited to: convertible bond investments, portfolio hedging, equity related arbitrage, special situations (e.g. merger arbitrage, rights offerings, participation in international public offerings and placements, etc.). The Fund's geographic focus is Asia excluding Japan, but including Australia). The Fund may invest outside of this region to the extent that: 1. The investment decision is driven from the Asian region or; 2. The exposure is intended to mitigate risk or enhance return from factors external to the Asian region. |
Manager Comments | Majority of the Fund's return came from the Long Short Strategy, which generated a loss of 243bp. The month's return was driven by two positions. The Fund lost 170bp due to the long position in education service provider Vocation Ltd (VET.AX). The second position which lost money this month was the short position in Metcash Ltd/MTS.AX. The Portfolio Hedge strategy did not make a significant contribution. To read more, cLick below for Fund's Monthly performance report. |
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25 Dec 2015 - Supervised High Yield Fund
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Fund Overview | The fund may also invest in interest rate swaps, options over authorized investments and exchange traded futures contracts. All these will be either listed or traded in a market where they can be independently valued. Fundamental to the investment procedure is the tenet that no debt security will qualify for investment unless it can repay 100% of its principal and interest in a worst case economic scenario. |
Manager Comments | The Funds returns in November were negatively affected by weakness in the US and Australian corporate debt market where the Fund has 26.76% of its assets. The Fund Manager believes this weakness to be a short term phenomena and that these market prices were affected more by sentiment than actual credit risk metrics. The overriding sentiment effecting market prices during November was due to the weakness in commodity prices. The Fund is confident that the investments made in the underlying assets are sound. More than half of the portfolio's composition (as a percentage of NAV) was invested in Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) 62.93%. The rest of the portfolio composition was in USD Corporate Loans at 22.25%, Cash at 10.31% and AUD Corporate Loans at 4.51%. Click below to view the latest Fund Manager Report. |
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24 Dec 2015 - 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 holdings in Microsoft, eBay, McDonald's and McGraw-Hill Financial. The main negative contributors were Zimmer, Reckitt Benckiser, Time Warner and Sanofi. The Fund continues to have no foreign currency hedging in place as Insync consider the main risks to the Australian dollar to be on the downside. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager Report. |
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24 Dec 2015 - Fund Review: Totus Alpha Fund November 2015
TOTUS ALPHA FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Totus Alpha Fund.
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund;
- Totus Capital is a Sydney based long short fund manager established in 2012 by Ben McGarry which aims to place equal emphasis on performance and capital preservation. The Fund invests mainly in Australia, but also in other developed economies, with a primary exposure to equity markets.
- The Totus Alpha Fund's investment strategy is to identify structural themes, and then seek to drive performance by investing in securities that have concentrated exposure to those themes. Single stock short positions are used to generate alpha, frequently in under researched parts of the market such as the small and mid-cap space. Index derivatives are used to hedge the portfolio's market risk.
- McGarry qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PWC in 1999 and has 14 years market experience, commencing his career covering European building materials and construction sectors at Morgan Stanley in London. Previous experience included analytical roles at Ausbil, a Sydney based $10bn+ long-only manager, and sell side emerging companies experience at UBS. McGarry's emerging company research with UBS included exposure to a range of sectors including energy, materials, industrials, tech, financials, retail and telecommunications.
- The Fund has delivered an annalised return of 31.89% since inception in March 2012 as compared to 9.72% for the ASX 200 Accumulation Index. The standard deviation has been higher than the Index at 14.12% as compared to 12.20% and the Sharpe ratio is 1.86.
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23 Dec 2015 - Fund Review: QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund November 2015
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 maximise 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.
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22 Dec 2015 - Fund Review Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund November 2015
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 10.13% p.a., compared to the AFM's Asia Pacific Index of 5.71%. The Fund has achieved this with lower volatility of 6.16% (Index 12.00%).
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
22 Dec 2015 - 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 | The Dividend Arbitrage strategy contributed strong performance, with continued stock specific outperformance from Bank of Queensland, OzForex Group and Dulux Group. The Alpha Capture also performed strongly due to a short resources exposure. Index Rebalance Strategy contributed to performance this month across the ASX200 and various global indices. Capital Raisings Strategy underperformed, which was driven by the weak performance of the heavily-discounted Santos rights issue. The Fund had a net exposure of 48%, of which 26.3% exposure was in the Financial sector. Click the link below to view the latest Monthly Report. |
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21 Dec 2015 - Fund Review: Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund November 2015
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-framework and usually holds around 20 bond securities of varying maturities.
21 Dec 2015 - Laminar Credit Opportunities Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund may also invest in derivatives for hedging purposes. The portfolio of the Fund comprises primarily Investment Grade holding of 75% of the Fund's assets. Benchmark allocations are Australasia 50% to 100%, North America 0% to 50% and Europe 0% to 50%. Currency hedging may take place depending on benefits to the Fund. |
Manager Comments | Equity markets were down and credit indices were wider. The general proxy for credit in Australia, the Australian iTraxx index, moved wider by 7 basis points during the month. Majority of the Fund's portfolio composition was in Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) at 57%, followed by Short-dated loans at 22%. Click on the link below to read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
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18 Dec 2015 - Fund Review: Bennelong Kardinia Absolute Return Fund November 2015
BENNELONG KARDINIA ABSOLUTE RETURN FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review. You are also able to view the Fund's Profile.
- The Fund is long biased, research driven, active equity long/short strategy investing in listed ASX companies with an nine year track record.
- The Fund has significantly outperformed the ASX200 Accumulation Index since its inception in May 2006 and also has significantly lower risk KPI's. The Fund has an annualised return of 12.65% p.a. with a volatility of 7.26%, compared to the ASX200 Accumulation's return of 4.36% p.a. with volatility of 14.29%.
- The Fund also has a strong focus on capital protection in negative markets. Portfolio Managers Mark Burgess and Kristiaan Rehder have significant market experience, while Bennelong Funds Management provide infrastructure, operational, compliance and distribution capabilities.
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.