Hyperion takes the long-view

The Hyperion Australian Growth Companies Fund has won the Australian equities (broad cap) category of this year’s Money Management/Lonsec Fund Manager of the Year awards based on a high conviction approach and stable investment team. 

The Hyperion Australian Growth Companies Fund has won the Australian equities (broad cap) category of this year’s Fund Manager of the Year based on a high conviction approach and stable investment team. 

Hyperion Asset Management chief investment officer Mark Arnold said taking a long-term approach to portfolio construction was the real point of difference between his company’s strategy and that of competitors. 

“We see ourselves as business owners rather than traders - we’re really focused on owning the highest quality organic growth businesses available in the investable universe,” he said. 

“We want those businesses to grow with attractive rates because it means their intrinsic value increases over time - and their share prices should follow over time as well.” 

Arnold said having four fund managers and an investment analyst dealer was sufficient, given the fund’s highly focused approach to investing. 

“We think that small teams are the most effective way to manage money,” he said. 

For category finalist Lazard Asset Management Pacific chief executive Susan Roberts, one of the key drivers for the success of its Select Australian Equity Fund has been the stability of its investment team, which has remained largely intact since 1999. 

Five managers and two investment analysts make up the equities team, and more than half the excess return the fund produced last year came from shares it invested in for about four to five years, Roberts said. Stock valuations were the key to identifying these long-term opportunities, she said. 

Roberts said that in the current Australian equity market there were still underpriced opportunities out there - and the shares currently in the portfolio were priced below Lazard’s valuations. 

“Absent a disaster, it is likely that the market should be higher in five years than it is now, and we believe our portfolios are well-positioned to outperform,” she said. 

With a 'value’ style approach to investing, the investment team behind the Antares Australian Equities Fund - also a finalist in this year’s Australian equities (broad cap) category - stands by the stock selections that the market has left behind. 

That’s according to Glenn Hart, Antares co-head of equities, who added that the biggest discounts to valuations appeared at the end of last year when the market had missed a lot of stock opportunities. 

“The stocks we’re trying to buy are the ones that we have analysed and think they’re trading a long way above what the market values them at,” he said. 

“Any macros conclusions about the Australian market come from the bottom-up.”