A shuffle of Funds SA’s $5 billion Australian equities portfolio has created space for three new managers.
Following an annual review, Funds SA, the $14.5 billion government owned multi-manager has appointed Goldman Sachs JBWere Asset Management, Perennial Growth Management, and Bernstein Value to $560 million, $560 million and $360 million mandates respectively. Collectively, this represents 29 per cent of Fund SA’s Australian equites portfolio. “Several managers [existing mandates] were recently cut back to correct a slight value bias,” Funds SA chief executive, Richard Smith, said regarding the source of the money. “None of the current managers have been terminated.” “Goldman Sachs JBWere was appointed to provide a solid, quantitative core, and Perennial Growth will complement our other growth manager [Orion Asset Management],” Smith said. Fund SA’s other current Australian equity managers include Balanced Equity Management, Barclay’s Global Investors, Kinetic Investment Partners, Perrenial Investment Partners, and SG Hiscock. There has been no shift in Fund SA’s overall asset allocations.
Future Fund chief investment officer Ben Samild said that FY24 has been a great year for alpha creation, thanks to strong returns in equities and, unusually, across multiple hedge fund strategies all at the same time. He reflected the past few years have been “a difficult time to be an asset owner and to generate positive returns for risk assets” but the Future Fund is tracking well of its long-term mandate.
Simon Hoyle and Darcy SongSeptember 4, 2024
