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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 as a Listed Investment Company (LIC) on the ASX. |
| Manager Comments | Bennelong noted the Fund fared poorly in October, returning -7.05% in a month which featured elevated market volatility, general weakness, corporate activity and an abundance of updates to earnings guidance at AGMs. With respect to company earnings and guidance updates, both the long and short portfolio experienced favourable bias of upgrades/downgrades. However, company fundamentals were overwhelmed by the market favouring defensive traits in preference to operating/fundamental performance, which Bennelong noted is unusual in this type of environment. In addition, Bennelong believe there was element of mean reversion in the Fund's September and October performance following their strong August return of +10.59%. Key contributing long/short pairs included long Orica (ORI)/ short Downer EDI (DOW), long Ramsay Health Care (RHC)/ short Primary (PRY)/Healthscope (HSO) and long Woolworths (WOW)/ short Metcash(MTS). Detractors included long Xero (XRO)/ short MYOB (MYO), long TPG Telecom (TPM)/ short Telstra (TLS) and long Iluka Resources (ILU)/ short Rio Tinto (RIO). Bennelong noted the indicative bid by private equity firm KKR for MYOB negatively impacted the Fund's long Xero / short MYOB pair, which accounted for one third of the Fund's negative return for the month. |
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