NEWS
Clarity Multi Strategy Fund
2 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Clarity Multi Strategy Fund returned -8.82% for the month of March.
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2 May 2016 - Clarity Multi Strategy Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Manager Comments | Click below to read the latest Fund monthly report. |
| More Information |
Fund Review: QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund March 2016
2 May 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Latest Fund Review is now available on QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund, investing exclusively in S&P/ASX 100 stocks.
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2 May 2016 - Fund Review: QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund March 2016
By: Australian Fund Monitors
AFM Fund Review - March 2016 (pdf format)
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.
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
AFM Fund Review - March 2016 (pdf format)
Insync Global Titans Fund
29 Apr 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Insync Global Titans Fund returned -4.10%, compared to the MSCI All Country World ex-Australia Net Total Return Index in $A, which returned -0.40%.
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29 Apr 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 Mead Johnson, Oracle Corp, Zimmer Holdings and Time Warner Inc. The main negative contributors were Sanofi, Roche, PayPal, and Medtronic. 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 |
APN AREIT Fund
28 Apr 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
APN AREIT Fund rose 2.83% in March, outperforming the S&P/ASX300 Property Trust Accumulation Index's return of 2.50%, by 0.33%.
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28 Apr 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 | Over the month, the Fund's positive performance was due to the overweight positions in stocks such as Charter Hall Retail REIT (CQR) which was up 6.50% and Generation Healthcare REIT (GHC) which was up 9.09%, along with underweight positions in relatively weaker stocks like Westfield Corporation (WFD) which was down 0.10% and GPT Group (GPT) which was up 1.63%.Group. Over the quarter ending 31 March 2016, the Fund provided a total return of 6.63%, outperforming the AREIT Index by 0.25%. Click below to read the complete Fund Manager's Report. |
| More Information |
QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund
28 Apr 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund returned -8.29%.
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28 Apr 2016 - QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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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 | The beta rally, particularly in lower quality names, impacted the performance negatively due to the Fund's focus on high quality. Ten of the long positions delivering positive returns in March, with Bluescope strongly outperforming the market and rising +17.87%. The performance of the short book was negatively impacted by a relatively small number of outliers moving against the Fund. Aurizon was the most profitable position from the shorts returning +3.71%. The average net monthly exposure of the portfolio was 13.68%. |
| More Information |
Fund Review: Totus Alpha Fund March 2016
27 Apr 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Read the latest Fund Review with key statistics on Totus Alpha Fund, which has an annualised return of 24.72% p.a.
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27 Apr 2016 - Fund Review: Totus Alpha Fund March 2016
By: Australian Fund Monitors
AFM Fund Review - March 2016 (pdf format)
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 24.72% since inception in March 2012 as compared to 8.85% for the ASX 200 Accumulation Index. The standard deviation has been higher than the Index at 15.73% as compared to 12.36% and the Sharpe ratio is 1.33.
AFM Fund Review - March 2016 (pdf format)
Pengana PanAgora Absolute Return Global Equities Fund
27 Apr 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Pengana PanAgora Absolute Return Global Equities Fund returned -1.41% for the month of March. The Fund has low systematic risk (beta) to the ASX200 and the MSCI World Indices of 0.09 and 0.08 respectively.
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27 Apr 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 | The healthcare sector was the biggest detractor costing the portfolio approximately 1% for the month. While the long term portfolio ended the month down 1.72%, the intermediate term portfolio rose 0.55%. March was a good month for M&A trading and a number of deals that have been in the portfolio for some time closed. At month-end, the Fund's total gross exposure was 388% and zero net. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
| More Information |
Fund Review: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund March 2016
26 Apr 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Latest Fund Review on Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund is now available.
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26 Apr 2016 - Fund Review: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund March 2016
By: Australian Fund Monitors
BT20AEF - AFM Fund Review March 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.
BT20AEF - AFM Fund Review March 2016 (pdf format)
Affluence Investment Fund
26 Apr 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Affluence Investment Fund rose 1.20% in March.
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26 Apr 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 March. The biggest contribution ca came from smaller company funds as markets recovered. The biggest detractors were couple of funds with overseas exposure and mostly due to an appreciating Australian dollar. The Fund portfolio continues to be conservatively placed. At 31 March, the Affluence Fund held investments in 17 unlisted funds, which represented 66% of the total portfolio. It also held 22 smaller investments in listed investment companies and securities, representing 15% of the portfolio. The rest of the balance was held in cash (19%). The Fund is actively looking to deploy part of that cash and have another 34 investments in advanced stages of due diligence. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's report. |
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Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund
22 Apr 2016 - Australian Fund Monitors
Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund returned -0.30% for the month of March 2016.
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22 Apr 2016 - Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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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. |
| More Information |
