Colonial First State (CFS) has chosen Franklin Templeton specialist investment manager, Martin Currie Australia (MCA), to manage a mandate on its FirstChoice platform.
Namely, Martin Currie has been awarded an Australian equity mandate available on CFS’ platform. According to the firm, CFS’ selection of the MCA Active Insights strategy reflects the strong relationship between Franklin Templeton, Martin Currie, and CFS.
The newly added strategy sits alongside several existing strategies from Martin Currie and other Franklin Templeton specialist investment managers on the platform.
“We are pleased to be awarded this mandate for the MCA Active Insights Australia equity strategy and to have our expertise in managing Australian equity portfolios continually acknowledged,” said Felicity Walsh, Franklin Templeton’s managing director for Australia.
“We believe this strategy, which seeks to provide consistent relative returns with reduced risk over shorter time horizons, will provide beneficial diversification for users of the FirstChoice platform.”
Matt Davison, portfolio manager at Martin Currie Australia, said the MCA Active Insights strategy isolates the investment team’s pure fundamental insights, while also minimising style factor and sector risks relative to the S&P/ASX 200 Index.
“In the face of the growing weight of assets behind passive or index-sensitive strategies, not to mention the strict penalties for any fund failing regulatory performance tests, this strategy harmonises our fundamental insights with disciplined risk control,” he explained.
“Importantly, the strategy’s portfolio construction approach allows my co-portfolio manager, Sam Li, and I, to tailor the risk exposures within our sleeve of a multi-manager portfolio to complement the existing exposures clients may have elsewhere in their portfolio.”
Walsh added the firm’s solutions-based style, along with Martin Currie’s active ownership approach, was critical in securing the CFS mandate.
“We look forward to this strategy being used as a core component of the platform’s Australian equity multimanager portfolio,” she said.
CFS also announced a significant mandate with Man Group, a global investment management firm with US$168.6 billion ($265 billion) in assets under management, earlier this year.
The company’s Boston-based systematic equities and credit investment manager, Man Numeric, received the CFS mandate with an initial allocation in Q4 2024 of over $1 billion in a strategy benchmarked to the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index.
According to CFS chief investment officer, Jonathan Armitage, Man Group’s innovative and disciplined approach to global fixed income was what set them apart from other competitors.
“I see systematic credit and fixed income becoming a growing part of how large institutions will access asset classes that were previously the domain of fundamental managers. It’s important that we have the right partners in place to provide our clients with a range of investment options,” the CIO said.
