A cohesive approach to win

The Ausbil 130/30 Focus has taken out the 2021 Money Management Fund Manager of the Year Long/Short equities award.

Judges praised the managers’ track record and the firm’s risk management and active positioning.

Judges said manager Gian Pandit was a strong investor with a successful long-term track record managing long/short strategies.

“Furthermore, [it] highlights the considerable experience of senior Ausbil investors and their cohesive decision-making approach, which is supported by a repeatable research process and a well-resourced investment team,” they said.

They also said Ausbil’s risk management and active positioning were key to performance, and the fund had focussed research and strong interaction between portfolio managers and analysts.

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Highly commended was awarded to Tribeca Alpha Plus, which portfolio manager, Jun Bei Liu, said had seen significant inflows at a time when other managers were seeing outflows and now had almost $1 billion in funds under management (FUM).

“There’s something very exciting about this fund; I took over it two years ago and it was sitting at $350 million [FUM] and was struggling,” Liu said.

“The previous portfolio manager left, and I took over and I made changes to the portfolio – we hired a lot of smart people.

“I ran the portfolio with my philosophy because I’m a stockpicker, very much focused on fundamental stock ideas. And being very active in the markets and pragmatic about where the returns are coming from, and keep a style neutral [philosophy].”

Judges said Liu was a capable investor who was deeply experienced with the strategy.

“In addition, the fund’s investment process is considered differentiated bringing an intuitively appealing combination of both quantitative and fundamental aspects to long/short investing,” the judges said.