News
5 Apr 2016 - Fund Review: QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund February 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 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.
4 Apr 2016 - Fund Review: Insync Global Titans Fund February 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 decreased by 1.8% in February. The performance was driven by positive contributions from the holdings in Paypal, McGraw-Hill, Gilead Sciences, Comcast and Reckitt Benckiser. The main negative contributors were Sanofi, Nestle, McDonald's, Time Warner and Microsoft. 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 downsid
- 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.
1 Apr 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 | This negative performance was all attributed to the longer term portfolio which was down 1.68%. Volatility across asset classes remained elevated and the stocks held by fundamental fund managers performed the worst. As a result quality stocks were sold and, as some investors had to cover their shorts to deleverage their positions, lower quality stocks performed relatively better. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
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31 Mar 2016 - Fund Review: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund February 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.
30 Mar 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 | The Fund's performance was a result of a net short position that began building late in the month in the face of a real estate and infrastructure sector that rallied approximately 2.0% in the same period. Since then, the Fund has continued to gradually build its net short position to exploit a situation of stretched sectoral valuations and degrading fundamentals. Click Manager's Report to read more. |
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30 Mar 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 Paypal, McGraw-Hill, Gilead Sciences, Comcast and Reckitt Benckiser. The main negative contributors were Sanofi, Nestle, McDonald's, Time Warner and Microsoft. 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. |
More Information |
29 Mar 2016 - Fund Review Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund February 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 9.74% p.a., compared to the AFM's Asia Pacific Index of 4.28%. The Fund has achieved this with lower volatility of 6.15% (Index 12.01%).
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
29 Mar 2016 - Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund
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Fund Overview | JCBAF seeks to establish a mid to long term core portfolio using both domestic and global macroeconomic analysis. This is overlaid with a number of valuation indicators and international market intelligence from a global network of market moving investors, including central bankers and hedge funds, to construct an optimal indexed portfolio allocation at any given time. The Fund recognises short term oscillations driven by technical factors and supply dynamics create opportunities within short term pricing cycles, which can generate significant alpha when managed within a risk adjusted framework. The Fund aims to outperform its index using duration and curve management at appropriate times in the pricing cycle whilst retaining a core long. The JCB Active Fund gives direct access to the management team whilst providing portfolio balance with increased capital stability and a fixed income streams with both income and principle repayment secured by the Australian or State Governments. |
Manager Comments | Click below to read the Fund Manager's market outlook. |
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29 Mar 2016 - QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund
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Fund Overview | The fund targets a net market exposure of 0% to hedge broader market risks through 30 S&P/ASX-100 positions (15 long and 15 short equally weighted positions). The turnover is generally averaged around 30% of the total portfolio each month. The process is entirely systematic - stock selection and risk management are all employed in a rules based approach. The Market Neutral Long/Short Fund employs no financial leverage, no derivatives and no financial products to imitate leverage. The Investment Manager's three principal investment goals for the Fund are: 1. Market neutral long/short portfolio management with little correlation to equity markets; 2. Over a 3-5 year period, seeking to target annualised volatility of 15% per annum and annualised returns of 15-30% per annum above the Benchmark; Sharpe Ratio 1.0-2.0 and a negative beta to ASX listed equities; and 3. To provide investors with a co-investment opportunity alongside the founding members' investments in the Investment Manager's strategy. |
Manager Comments | Ten of the Fund's long positions outperformed the S&P/ASX-100's fall in February, with four positions delivering positive returns. The long portfolio outperformed the market by +1.90% this month, although was unable to provide any significant buffer to the Fund, which tends to occur during risk-on rallies. Six of the short positions outperformed the S&P/ASX-100's fall in February. The performance of the short book was negatively impacted by a relatively small number of outliers moving against the Fund. The average net monthly exposure of the portfolio was -0.94%. |
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24 Mar 2016 - Fund Review: Totus Alpha Fund February 2016
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 15 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 27.32% since inception in March 2012 as compared to 7.77% for the ASX 200 Accumulation Index. The standard deviation has been higher than the Index at 15.34% as compared to 12.32% and the Sharpe ratio is 1.49.