Pengana Capital, which recently expanded its marketing effort with the appointment of Denis Carroll as a consultant, is looking to offer institutional investors tailored product in the alternatives space.
Damien Hatfield, who was managing director of the hedge funds for Pengana prior to the sale of its listed investment vehicle last year and now has a broader executive role within the boutique, said that the firm’s new business model involved seeding new managers internally prior to bringing them to the market. Previously, Pengana acted as an incubator for external managers. “We have the capability to do specialist structures for clients,” he said. “Denis (Carroll) and I will be talking to people to identify their needs and look to construct something around that. Pengana is a ‘best ideas’ approach to investing.” Carroll, a former fund chief executive with AvSuper and former chairman of the Fund Executives Association Ltd, was most recently a business consultant with IXIS Asset Management. That contract finished at December 31. Pengana has just under $2 billion under management. Its largest fund is the $1 billion domestic listed property fund. It also has about $200 million in a multi-strategy listed property fund, much of which is sourced from offshore, and $150 million in a long-only emerging companies fund. Other products include a global multi-manager bond fund, a global small-cap fund and a small hedge fund of funds. Stephanie Fisher, a former portfolio manager with US real estate investment trust Reckson Associates, recently joined the Pengana LPT team.
Since taking over the top job at the $44 billion Funds SA more than a year ago, chief executive John Piteo has ushered in an investment function overhaul and wrapped up an important stage of the fund’s five-year data transformation program. It pledges to recentre around investment performance and more efficient processes, as the “missing piece” has been found in incoming CIO Con Michalakis.
Darcy SongJanuary 10, 2025
