Managed by one of the largest equity teams in Australia, the Pendal Australian Share fund has scooped victory in the category of separately managed accounts (SMA) – Australian equity.
At this year’s Money Management Fund Manager of the Year awards, the firm beat off competition from Bennelong, Blackmore Capital and Macquarie to score the win.
Positioned as an actively-managed portfolio of Australian shares, it aimed to provide a return that exceeded the ASX 300 over the medium to long term.
“Pendal’s investment process for Australian shares is based on our core investment style and aims to add value through active stock selection and fundamental company research. Pendal’s core investment style is to select stocks based on our assessment of their long-term worth and ability to outperform the market, without being restricted by a growth or value bias. Our fundamental company research focuses on valuation, franchise, management quality and risk factors (both financial and non-financial risk).”
Comments from the award judges said they had a “strong regard” for lead manager Crispin Murray, who had 28 years experience in the industry, and the outcomes that he had generated alongside a 20-strong investment team.
“The investment process is considered to be robust, that is unrestricted by growth or value styles and aims to capitalise on stock mispricings, before they are recognised by the market,” judges said.
In its most recent factsheet, the fund had its largest weightings to financials ex property trusts at 26.1%, materials at 22.8% and 8.6% to industrials while its top three holdings were BHP Billiton, CSL and Westpac.
“We maintain the portfolio’s balanced construction, positioned for performance in a range of scenarios, however in recent times we have been adding to some of the more cyclical exposure as the scale of policy support has looked likely to increase,” Pendal added.
Performance in the last quarter had been helped by overweight positions to Xero and Nine Entertainment and detracted by Evolution Mining and National Australia Bank.
Highly commended in this category was Bennelong Australian Equities Model Portfolio Core which was regarded by judges for its “robust and logical investment process”. They also noted it had an impressive long-term track record of outperformance relative to the benchmark and peers.
