Perpetual’s Pure Microcap fund has topped the Australian equities small/mid cap sector over the three years to 31 May 2017 with a cumulative performance return at 102.97 per cent, according to FE Data Analytics.
The almost four-year-old fund performed well at 26.58 per cent for the three years to 31 May 2017, and at 12.84 per cent for its one-year performance.
While SGH Emerging Companies fund followed Perpetual with a cumulative performance return of 77.69 per cent over the three years, the fund’s performance had dropped in line with the market.
The fund’s annualised return at 31 May 2016 dropped to 0.9 per cent from an annusalised return of 21.10 per cent at 31 May 2014.
SGH portfolio manager, John Thomson, said the market had been difficult for the past nine months as relative outperformance of smalls in the previous two years had ended and the focus on return was toward the top end of the market as liquidity dried up in the smaller end of the market.
“It’s very hard to maintain numbers and performance from the previous two or three years and it’s just one of those periods of difficulty,” he said.
Despite this period of difficulty, Thomson said the fund’s focus would continue to look for stocks where they could make money and that their strategy would not change.
“The strategy won’t change, we focus our attention on seeing many companies, and hopefully finding good growth stories that will grow over time,” he said.
“We’re still reasonably positive for the outlook of market, it’s been difficult for the last year or so and hopefully things will turn. We’ve seen a number of other funds looking to raise funds into this sector so there’s interest returning from other people’s point of view and we hope that reflects in the market overall, and hopefully some companies can improve their performance as well.”
Third-ranked Forager’s three-year cumulative return of 66.42 per cent at 31 May 2017 saw the fund do very well as its one-year performance of 19.72 per cent was only second to Cromwell Phoenix Opportunities at 24.6 per cent.
