South African-based multi-affiliate manager Sanlam International Investment Partners has made its second investment in Australia, luring Kerry Series away from AMP Capital Investors to form a new Pan Asian equities boutique.
Series, who left AMP Capital last Friday, where he was head of Asia Pacific equities, including Australia, will launch Eight Investment Partners in January. It is his third tilt at the boutique world, having been part of the launch of Pacific Road Funds Management with Mike Crivelli from 1987 (which became Perennial Investment Partners) and then later DVA Capital, an Asian-orientated hedge fund, until 2007.
Sanlam entered the Australian market last year with the acquisition of a majority stake in the research-driven equities boutique Atom Funds Management. The two firms remain separate, with separate ownership structures.
Series said he was unable to comment in detail until he commences on January 4. Several more staff, including three senior portfolio managers, would be announced shortly, he said.
It is understood Series will be CIO of the new firm and that most of the global distribution is likely to be handled by Sanlam, which has about $40 billion under management, mostly offshore.
Eight Investment Partners (8IP) will be open to Australian investors but it is also expected to gather a large proportion of its assets offshore. (The figure ‘8’ stands for ‘lucky’ in both Mandarin and Cantonese.)
It is expected that 8IP will have offices in Sydney and either Singapore or Hong Kong, with the underlying investments spread throughout Asia ex-Japan, Australia and Japan.
The firm aims to be “long-termist” in style, concentrating on alpha generation, looking for stocks with a high ROE but with a valuation discipline to prevent the manager from overpaying.
At Perennial, Series’ Asian fund was one of the best performing funds of its type in the world.
He is known to favour the Perennial-style of multi-affiliate management, which combines the staff equity of a boutique with the backoffice, business management and distribution capabilities of a larger financial institution.