Style characteristics are playing a less influential role in performance as Australian share funds face a tough year ahead, a report rating the best funds in the sector has found.
In support of previous forecasts for Australian shares, Zenith Partners’ most recent sector review found performance remained strong across the board last year although style characteristics played a less influential role than in past periods with value, growth and style neutral managers all performing strongly.
Zenith Partners director David Smythe said despite the expected difficult equity environment there were still opportunities to pick strong ‘best of breed’ managers that would outperform both their peers and benchmarks and be worthwhile candidates in model portfolios.
As part of its review of over 100 funds in the sector, Zenith released a recommended list of Australian share funds.
The Ausbil Australian Active Equity Fund was highly recommended, as were two newcomers to Zenith’s recommended list, Perpetual Wholesale Australian Fund and Perpetual Wholesale Concentrated Equity Fund.
Smythe said these funds were rated higher than others due to a combination of qualitative and quantitative factors including track record and the experience and expertise of their personnel.
“Ausbil, with Paul Xiradis at the helm, we’ve rated highly for some time. They’re a style neutral manager with an excellent track record and we think that their process is second to none in their portfolio construction,” he said.
“Perpetual is a manager that we upgraded in this particular review. With Peter Morgan having left, they’re a manager that’s done a great job of being able to transition from one head of equities to the next. That shows through the underlying strength of their investment process.”
Smythe said Perpetual was Zenith’s preferred value manager on the list as it had a strong team with John Sevior at the helm, and a robust and rigorous investment process.
Other newcomers to the recommended list included Perpetual’s Wholesale Geared Australian Fund, CFS Wholesale 452 Australian Share Fund and IOOF Perennial Wholesale Value Shares Trust, each of which received ‘recommended’ ratings.
ABN Amro’s new Concentrated Australian Equity Fund was also added to the list, joining its underlying fund the ABN Amro Australian Equity Fund with the same recommended rating.
Two funds, IOOF Perennial Wholesale Growth Shares Trust and UBS Australian Share Fund, received only approved ratings, but Smythe said they remained on the recommended list as they continued to be of investment grade and Zenith was happy for its clients to include them in portfolios.
