Fund Manager of the Year 2014: Property and Infrastructure Securities

Winner

Lazard Global Listed Infrastructure Securities Fund  

Finalists

Cromwell Phoenix Property Securities Fund

Zurich Investments Australian Property Securities Fund 

Lazard’s strict application of its 'preferred infrastructure’ paradigm has delivered outstanding results and is one of the central factors that helped it win the Property and Infrastructure Securities category in this year’s Money Management/Lonsec Fund Manager of the Year awards, according to portfolio manager Warryn Robertson.  

“The Lazard Global Listed Infrastructure Securities Fund offers investors the opportunity of accessing a diversified, global portfolio of stocks, all of which share the characteristics which we term 'preferred infrastructure’,” said Robertson. 

The fund developed its 'preferred infrastructure’ subset based on the recognition that “not all infrastructure companies are equal and that some are more likely to deliver the desired returns,” Robertson said. 

It invests only in assets that meet this paradigm. 

Phoenix Portfolio’s managing director Stuart Cartledge believes the Cromwell Phoenix Property Securities Fund was selected as a finalist because of “strong investment returns, in both an absolute sense, a relative sense, and from a risk-adjusted return sense”. 

Cartledge also pointed to an influx of new clients who had also brought success to the fund in 2014. 

“The fund has almost doubled in size over the 12 months to 13 December, and the inflows are continuing in 2014. 

Our ability to invest in stocks outside of the index has been a big contributor to investment success, including positions in stocks such as Sydney Airport.” 

Finalist Zurich Investments Australian Property Securities Fund is managed by Renaissance Asset Management. 

Director of Renaissance Asset Management, Carlos Cocaro, said the fund’s contrarian approach of increasing risk in its portfolio had paid off. 

“At the bottom of the cycle during, and post the GFC, when a lot of other investors where dumping risk, we increased our portfolio weighting to deeply discounted (often distressed) stocks, as well as developers and fund managers whose earnings and profits were at decade lows that would benefit from a recovery in property markets.” 

The fund had found value in small cap REITS which were often deeply discounted and under-researched by analysts, Cocaro said.