Linda Stangherlin
Zurich Investments Australian Property Securities Fund (the Fund) has maintained its “Highly Recommended” rating from research houses Lonsec and Zenith in their 2017 reviews.
This follows the Fund also being named this year’s ‘Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year: Property & Infrastructure Category’ in March, and rounds out the recognition from Australia’s leading research houses for exceptional investment performance.
As well as maintaining its “Highly Recommended” rating for the third year in a row, Lonsec further recognised the Fund by adding it to their model portfolio, effective July 2017. This is on the ‘belief that current market dynamics, including benchmark exposure to retail centres, rising interest rates historically high valuations now warrant an active approach to the asset class.’
The Fund is managed by Zurich’s strategic investment partner Renaissance Property Securities Pty Ltd (Renaissance), who were lauded for their active management approach.
Zurich Investments National Sales Manager, Linda Stangherlin said the Fund offers investors access to some of the best value listed property trusts in Australia and is actively managed by one of the most experienced investment teams in the industry.
“This Fund goes from strength to strength in terms of performance and recognition from industry experts. Much of that is down to the in-depth knowledge of our specialist fund manager; it could be argued that few know Australian property better. This experience and active management approach will be even more important as the dynamics of the property market change,” said Ms. Stangherlin.
Commentary from the Research houses:
- Lonsec: The ‘rating is underpinned by Lonsec’s strong conviction in the Fund’s co-portfolio managers, who are viewed as high-quality specialist A-REIT investors.’
‘Lonsec believes that the Manager’s active approach and the high degree of conviction in portfolios via significant holdings in smaller A-REITs and off-benchmark names give the Fund a meaningful chance of meeting the Fund’s outperformance objective.’ - Zenith: Renewing the rating for the fourth year, Zenith also ‘maintains strong conviction in the collective abilities of both Cocaro and Barrack owing to their experience and long standing working relationship. Zenith believes this is a key strength of the Fund.’
- Morningstar: Adding to these top ratings, the Fund was also awarded the Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year in the Property & Infrastructure category for 2017 earlier this year. The award was ‘in recognition of its highly-experienced team and time-tested value approach to investing in Australian listed property stocks.’
‘Carlos Cocaro, managing director, and Damien Barrack, director of Renaissance adopt a genuinely active investment approach, taking sizeable departures from index weightings and investing in unloved stocks and turnaround stories.’