Russell backs new boutique equities manager
Quest Asset Partners hired to run $35m for Russell Australian Shares Aggressive Fund
SYDNEY, 8 August, 2005 – Global investment and superannuation specialist,
Russell
Investment Group, today announced the appointment of Quest Asset Partners Pty
Limited (Quest) to
manage around $35 million for the Russell Australian Shares Aggressive Fund,
making Russell one of the
first multi-managers to provide access to the newly established boutique.
Quest is owned and managed by Co-Directors Michael Evans and Christopher Cahill,
who spent
the last 9 years working together with the AMP Capital team before forming
Quest last year. The
manager aims to deliver an absolute return generated by a concentrated portfolio
of 20-25 stocks, and is
expected to give the Russell Australian Shares Aggressive Fund more concentrated
exposure to mid and
smaller capitalisation growth companies. Quest will have a 15 per cent weighting
within the Russell
Australian Shares Aggressive Fund and replaces Portfolio Partners, which had
managed 25 per cent. The
remaining 10 per cent allocation will be equally distributed to incumbents
452 Capital Pty Limited (452
Capital) and ABN AMRO Asset Management (Australia) Limtied (ABN AMRO).
Mr Symon Parish, Director of Portfolio Management for Russell Investment Group
in Australia,
said the Russell Australian Shares Aggressive Fund aims to provide investors
with exposure to an
aggressively managed diversified portfolio of Australian equities with high
return expectations. To
achieve this, multiple managers and a range of alternative and higher risk
investment strategies – such as
small capitalisation, long/short, concentrated and benchmark independent – are
employed to reduce
overall ‘scenario risk’.
“ Our goal is to reduce dependency on a particular economic scenario or
market cycle by creating
an aggregate portfolio of managers that provides opportunities to strongly
outperform in almost any
conceivable environment,” Mr Parish said.
The Russell Australian Shares Aggressive Fund returned 26.97 per cent for
the 12 months to 30
June 2005, net of fees.
Following the appointment of Quest, the Fund is now diversified across five
separate manager
mandates with the following portfolio weights: 452 Capital (30%); ABN AMRO
(30%); JM Financial
Group Ltd (5%); Westpeak Investment Advisers (Australia) Pty Ltd (20%); Quest
(15%).
Mr Parish said the Fund’s broad style neutrality would be preserved following
the changes, with
Quest’s concentrated approach continuing to focus the Fund’s risk
on stock selection. Quest looks to
identify pricing anomalies in the market, and seeks out businesses it perceives
as being undervalued by
the market. The ‘high conviction’ portfolio is constructed with
approximately equal weights in each
stock, rather than a weight relative to any index.
Established in Sydney in August 2004, Quest has currently chosen to accept
only wholesale
mandates. “We are excited to be one of the first investment vehicles
to offer smaller investors and
financial planners access to Quest, who we feel is well positioned to outperform
over the coming year,”
Mr Parish said. “Market research shows that boutique managers are more
likely to achieve their best
performance in their early years, so Russell’s global manager research
team continues to scour the funds
management landscape to bring these opportunities to investors large and small,” he
said.
The $3.9 billion Russell Australian Shares Fund also has a 4 per cent allocation
to the Russell
Australian Shares Aggressive Fund.
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