It’s all about the mandate
A truly index unaware mandate that allows managers to simply look for the best opportunities in the market has helped the Quay Global Real Estate Fund win the Global Property Securities category at this year’s Money Management/ Lonsec’s Fund Manager of the Year Awards.
Quay’s principal, Chris Bedingfield, said that the fund’s mandate couple with its ‘all-weather portfolio’ was the key to the fund’s success.
“I really think it all comes down to mandate which is to be truly index unaware and just looks for the best opportunities. And really focus on the capital preservations, and being relatively defensive I think, the way we think about the portfolio, the way we think about our securities,” he said.
The fund is not tied to any index and its management can focus entirely on finding the best real estate opportunities globally.
“If you look at the sort of assets and the sectors that we are in – we are – or the fund has exposures to sectors that tend to be resilient during the periods of economic downturns. So that might include the areas such as healthcare, affordable housing, student accommodation - these sectors have historically performed very well when markets have been and the economy has been at its worst,” he said.
“At the end of the day I think that is what a lot of investors look for, it’s fine to get returns when things are good, it’s when the things are bad you know, can you hold the capital, can you preserve the capital that it’s been probably our biggest winner over the last 12 months,” Bedingfield said.
Global head of product at LaSalle Investment Management, Steve Ralff, said that he believed that long-term performance of real estate securities was driven by the performance of their underlying assets and the ability of their management teams to create or destroy value.
“Our core strength is our exclusive focus on real estate which allows us to dedicate substantial resources to real estate research and analysis,” he said.
Janine Yoong, Principal Real Estate Investors’ portfolio manager, said her fund was recognised for its consistent track record of outperformance and the consistency in its investment approach, which remains unchanged since inception in 2007.
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