Share managers post positive results in December

Australian share fund managers delivered positive results in December, with median returns of 4.2 per cent, which was up 9.6 per cent counting year-on-year, according to Morningstar.

However, they still lagged behind the S&P/ASX 300 index. Morningstar's Australian Institutional Sector Survey said that longer-term annualised returns from the median manager were 7.2 per cent over three years and 12.8 per cent and 5.7 per cent over the five and 10 years, respectively. Allan Gray (38.1 per cent) was the best-performing Australian share strategies fund, followed by Schroder and Maple-Brown Abbott (both 18.6 per cent) and Realindex (18.1 per cent).

Global share strategies lagged behind Australian shares, with the median manager returning 8.2 per cent on an unhedged basis and individual results ranged from 21.4 per cent down to -3.8 per cent.

The best-performers in the category were Orbis (21.4 per cent), Antipodes (19.3 per cent) and Realindex (14.3 per cent). At the same time, the median Australian property securities manager gained 13.7 per cent over the year, above the index's 13.2 per cent, with the winners being Morningstar Investment Management (16 per cent), Folkestone Maxim (15.4 per cent) and Zurich (15.2 per cent).

Australian listed property was the best-performing growth asset class (13.2 per cent), followed by Australian equities (11.8 per cent), global listed property (8.3 per cent) and global equities (7.9 per cent).

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The standout sector of the month was utilities (8.7 per cent), followed by energy (6.1 per cent) and financials (5.5 per cent), while poor-performing sectors included telecommunications (0.5 per cent), healthcare (0.9 per cent) and consumer staples (1.7 per cent).