Investment firm Perennial Partners has entered into a binding agreement to take a 50 per cent stake in Balmoral Investors and appoint it as the manager of Perennial’s microcap strategy.
Balmoral is a specialist small and micro-cap investing firm with more than $1 billion in funds under management (FUM) operated by its founders, Wik Farwerck and Tim Canham, with the aim of increasing Australian investors’ exposure to the smaller end of the Australian share market.
Launched in 2017, Perennial’s microcap strategy is focused companies within the firm’s smaller companies strategy that fall below the $500 million market cap size.
Through this partnership, Farwerck and Canham will now manage the Perennial Microcap Strategy alongside their firm’s offerings, which it said will allow a dedicated team to focus on microcaps as they manage the portfolio and market the strategy to new investors.
Meanwhile, Andrew Smith, Perennial’s head of smaller companies and active engagement, will now focus solely on the firm’s small caps and active engagement strategy, which currently has about $1 billion FUM, while also assisting Farwerck and Canham through the transition.
With the small and microcap market evolving considerably since 2019, Smith explained that having a dedicated microcap arrangement will help deliver the best outcomes for the firm’s clients in this market.
He added: “The small cap and microcap end of the market has evolved considerably since 2017.The average company market cap size in the small cap index has risen significantly since then and there is an increased focus on the impact from index inclusion given the rise of passive money – hence the investment universe for both products is now very different.”
Perennial Partners executive director Anthony Patterson said the firm is pleased to welcome the pair, as well as investors in the Balmoral Microcaps Funds, to the Perennial stable.
“[We] want to reinforce to investors that all the necessary resources will continue to be committed by Perennial to the management of the Fund to ensure that investment opportunities will continue to be captured,” Patterson said.
Canham added: “We have known both Andrew Smith and John Murray at Perennial for over 20 years and hold them in high regard. We are looking forward to joining Perennial and believe that Balmoral will now have the scale to operate profitably and grow substantially with the support of Perennial in distribution, marketing, compliance and administration.”
