NEWS
Insync Global Titans Fund
1 Jun 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Insync Global Titans Fund returned 0.7%, compared to the MSCI All Country World ex-Australia Net Total Return Index in $A, which returned 2.3%.
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1 Jun 2016 - Insync Global Titans Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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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, Zimmer Holdings, BAT and Time Warner Inc. The main negative contributors were McGraw-Hill 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. |
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APN Asian REIT Fund
30 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
APN Asian REIT Fund returned 4.57% for the month of April.
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30 May 2016 - APN Asian REIT Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | Pete Morrissey and Corrine Ng are the Portfolio Managers of the Fund. Morrissey has over 15 years financial markets experience and joined APN in 2006. Previously, he worked at Lonsec and also managed an internationally focused private investment fund as well as spending several years as an analyst in the UK for Nomura, amongst others. He has also completed Masters level academic research papers on both commercial real estate cycles and global property cycles. Ng also has a strong background in property and REITs in Australia, Asia and the North American markets. Prior to joining APN, Ng worked for Aviva Investors (Senior Investment Analyst, North America Real Estate Securities Team) and Goldman Sachs & Co (Vice President, Goldman Sachs Asset Management Real Estate Securities Team) in New York. 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 is expected to be dynamic as 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 focuses on passive rental earnings derived from well managed Asian REITs listed in mature capital markets and will not invest in infrastructure, property development companies or stocks with a 'loose association with property'. 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. The Fund is suited to medium to long term investors seeking a relatively high income and some capital growth over the long term. The manager has offered a special 50% reduction in management fee for all existing and new investors who apply by 30 June 2016. |
| Manager Comments | The portfolio was allocated in multiple Asian countries, with the majority in Japan (37.8%) and Singapore (31.1%). Over 66% of the Fund was invested in the Retail REITs (41.1%) and the Office REITs (25.1%) sectors. The top 5 Asian REIT holdings were in Ascendas Real Estate Inv Trust, Link REIT, Gip J-REIT, Japan Retail Fund Investment and Heiwa Real Estate REIT Inc. Click below to read the latest Fund's performance report. |
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APN AREIT Fund
27 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
APN AREIT Fund rose 3.37% in April, outperforming the S&P/ASX300 Property Trust Accumulation Index's return of 2.76%, by 0.61%.
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27 May 2016 - APN AREIT Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The senior management of APN FM all have significant experience in their fields. They include CEO Real Estate Securities, Michael Doble who has 25 years'experience having held various senior roles specialising in real estate valuation, consultancy and funds management. Immediately prior to joining APN in 2003 he was Head of Property at ANZ Funds Management. He is a fellow of the Australian Property Institute and FINSIA as well as holding a Bachelor of Business (Property). 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 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 suited to medium to long term investors seeking a relatively high monthly income and some capital growth over the long term. |
| Manager Comments | Click below to read the complete Fund Manager's Report. |
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Signature Quantitative Fund
27 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Signature Quantitative Fund returned -0.30% for the month of April.
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27 May 2016 - Signature Quantitative Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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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 strong outperformance recently as the capital markets continued to provide numerous opportunities and SQF's market exposure also contributed to performance. Dividend Arbitrage and Alpha Capture strategies underperformed during April's resource-led market rally. Click the link below to view the latest Monthly Report. |
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Fund Review: Supervised Global Income Fund April 2016
26 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Fund review on Supervised Global Income Fund, a fixed income fund, is now available.
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26 May 2016 - Fund Review: Supervised Global Income Fund April 2016
By: Australian Fund Monitors
AFM Fund Review - April 2016 (pdf format)
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.
AFM Fund Review - April 2016 (pdf format)
Pengana PanAgora Absolute Return Global Equities Fund
25 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Pengana PanAgora Absolute Return Global Equities Fund returned -3.49% for the month of April. The Fund has low systematic risk (beta) to the ASX200 and the MSCI World Indices of 0.07 and 0.08 respectively.
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25 May 2016 - Pengana PanAgora Absolute Return Global Equities Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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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 | Performance was weakest in the Energy, Materials and IT sectors. Healthcare (the biggest detractor in March) proved the best performing sector with a contribution of approximately 0.7% on the back of earnings, a takeover announcement and positive trial results. The Intermediate portfolio gained 0.19% in April, helped largely by M&A induced activity in the US. Conversely, the short-term portfolio declined 0.69%, caused by a sharp rally in distressed European stocks, (predominantly Financials) which the fund was holding short in the expectation that they would fall out of the major European equity indices. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
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Fund Review: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund April 2016
24 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Latest Fund Review on Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund is now available.
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24 May 2016 - Fund Review: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund April 2016
By: Australian Fund Monitors
AFM Fund Review - April 2016 (pdf format)
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.
AFM Fund Review - April 2016 (pdf format)
Fund Review Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund April 2016
23 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Latest Fund Review now available on Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund, which has over 6 years of track record and annualised return of 9.95% p.a.
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23 May 2016 - Fund Review Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund April 2016
By: Australian Fund Monitors
AFM Fund Review - April 2016 (pdf format)
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 9.95% p.a., compared to the AFM's Asia Pacific Index of 4.49%. The Fund has achieved this with lower volatility of 6.09% (Index 11.89%).
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
AFM Fund Review - April 2016 (pdf format)
Affluence Investment Fund
20 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Affluence Investment Fund rose 1.92% in April.
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20 May 2016 - Affluence Investment Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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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 | Almost all of the Fund's investments delivered positive returns in April. The best returns came from the Fund's small resources investments. The worst performers were the long/short and market neutral funds which were roughly flat for the month. The property investments continued to deliver a decent yield. At month-end, the Fund held investments in 17 unlisted funds, which represented 62% of the total portfolio. The Fund also held 22 investments in listed investment companies and securities, representing 16% of the portfolio. The balance of 22% was held in cash. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's report. |
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Supervised Global Incomed Fund
20 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Supervised GLobal Income Fund rose 0.48% for the month of April, to bring annualised performance since inception to 9.35% p.a.
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20 May 2016 - Supervised Global Incomed Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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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 | More than half of the portfolio's composition (as a percentage of NAV) was invested in the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) 62.25%. The rest of the portfolio held USD Corporate Loans at 23.63% and AUD Corporate Loans at 4.54%. Cash was reduced from the prior month to 9.06%. The Fund Manager believe that even in an environment with historically low levels of interest rates, opportunities for reasonable returns still do exist in both, the Mortgage and Corporate Mezzanine loans market. Click below to view the latest Fund Manager Report. |
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