Wingate Asset Management, the global stock investor backed by Australian Unity Investments, says it can bolster the size of its fund 20 fold in two years.

The Melbourne-based firm’s founder Chad Padowitz says it is no great stretch for the firm to increase its assets under management to $1 billion from $50 million with the same five people who currently work at the firm.

Padowitz’s fund has had an annual net return of 4 per cent in Australian dollar terms since it was founded in late 2005. From January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2011 the fund was ranked No. 1 among 70 peers, according to Morningstar. The median fund performance was minus 6.8 per cent a year. Wingate had a minus 1 per cent return.

Australian investors have invested about $800 billion in global stocks.

“There is a lack of solutions out there,” says Padowitz.

Padowitz won’t disclose his fund’s investment strategy but it starts around options which he says gives the fund an automatic gain of 7 per cent.

The University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg graduate says if markets over the next five years rise five per cent per annum, Wingate “can double that.”