Which giant Aussie broad caps hit the bottom quartile in 2018?
Money Management has discovered that size really doesn’t matter, with 12 giant Australian broad-cap equity funds making some of the sector’s lowest returns for the 12 months to 30 November 2018.
Two Perpetual funds have topped the list for the worst performance out of all the giants, with Perpetual’s Wholesale Geared Australian and Pure Value Share returning -13.31 per cent and -10.10 per cent respectively, with funds under management (FUM) of $458.4 million and $374.2 million respectively.
The Perpetual funds fell from grace, after producing a top quartile performance with returns of 23.91 per cent and 16.16 per cent in the 12 months to 30 November 2017.
The biggest of the bunch, Perpetual’s Wholesale Ethical SRI fund, holds almost a whopping $1.3 billion in FUM, and was the third-worst performing of the giants, behind its two Perpetual peers, returning -8.41 per cent for the 12 month period.
The second-largest fund with $1.237 billion in FUM, Pengana Australian Equities, similarly hit the bottom quartile with returns of -6.5 per cent.
The two largest funds didn’t see that big a drop though, with Perpetual’s Wholesale Ethical SRI maintaining its fourth quartile position in the previous 12 months, and Pengana’s Australian Equities dropping from third quartile to fourth.
Perpetual took a beating in 2018 with its second-largest fund at $1.153 billion in FUM, the Perpetual Wholesale Australian fund, also in the bottom quartile, returning -3.76 per cent. This brings the total number of bottom quartile Perpetual funds to four.
The chart below tracks the performance of the Perpetual funds as compared to their common index, the S&P ASX 300, and the sector average for the 12 months to 30 November 2018.
Recommended for you
Platinum Asset Management has put its two closed-end funds under strategic review in a bid to reduce the share price discount to pre-tax NTA and maximise shareholder value.
In the latest Meet the Manager profile, Money Management speaks with Michael Skinner, founder and managing director at Blackwattle Investment Partners.
Perpetual has seen AUM rise 6 per cent in the last quarter but the departure of a longstanding JOHCM fund manager led to outflows of $2.2 billion from his strategy.
Global fixed income fund Bentham Global Opportunities has been added to several major platforms, enabling it to be accessed more easily by financial advisers.
