Magellan has launched the first two funds from its strategic partner Vinva Investment Management as executive chair Andrew Formica says the firm is turning back towards growth.
The strategic partnership with Vinva was announced in August at the firm’s FY24 results, with Magellan acquiring a 29.5 per cent stake in parent company Vinva Holdings.
Vinva manages active systematic equity strategies across Australian and global equity markets, having been founded in 2010 by Morry Waked.
Magellan said at the time that the two firms intend to collaborate on new product initiatives in Australia and globally.
At the firm’s annual general meeting on 22 October, managing director of Magellan Asset Management, Sophia Rahmani, announced the launch of the first two funds with Vinva for the Australian market.
These are the Vinva Australian Equity Fund and the Vinva Global Equity Fund, both of which are long-only systematic equity strategies.
A third fund – Vinva Australian Alpha Extension Fund – will be a 130:30 long-short strategy that is set to be launched in November.
“Each of these funds provides retail and wholesale investors access to Vinva’s investment capabilities and are in areas where we see significant client demand,” Rahmani said.
“Our focus for the remainder of FY25 will be to expand on the distribution of these funds across the Australian market, develop second phase funds, which will include a global long-short strategy and to continue to work with our distribution teams to open up distribution for Vinva strategies in North America and the rest of the world.”
Since the acquisition, Magellan said Vinva’s funds under management have increased by $1.6 billion to $23.1 billion. This is divided between $18.1 billion in Australian systematic equities and $5 billion in global equities, primarily from Australian institutional clients.
Formica added: “We envisage this relationship as one based on partnership, alignment and collaboration where Magellan can bring not only our distribution capabilities, but also access to Magellan’s expertise in product innovation, seed capital and future opportunities for Vinva to leverage the operational excellence of Magellan’s support functions.”
During the past year, Formica said the Magellan business had completed the share purchase plan loans for the vast majority of the team and completed the conversion of the Magellan Global Fund closed class units into open class units.
It also appointed Rahmani to lead the asset management division, and she is expected to be promoted to chief executive within the next six months.
While the unit conversion led to $0.7 billion in outflows in August, mostly from retail clients, overall funds under management have been on the rise. Since the start of 2024, FUM has risen from $35.8 billion to $38 billion.
Formica said: “With these important matters behind us, we have been able to turn our attention to the future of Magellan and our forward-looking growth strategy as we continue our focus on delivering long-term excellence to our clients.
“We recognise that our clients have a choice of who they trust to manage and protect their wealth, so we were pleased to see FUM flows start to stabilise, with outflows slowing quarter on quarter over the 2024 financial year and funds under management at 30 September 2024 of $38 billion which is higher than our average funds under management for FY24 of $36.8 billion.
“While this has been supported by the strength of financial markets we have seen, it also reflects early signs of a turn in our FUM profile back towards growth, and has been underpinned by recent client wins.”
