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MFS launches Global Contrarian Equity Trust for Australian investors

01 May 2025
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MFS Investment Management® (MFS®) has expanded its equity product offering for Australian wholesale and institutional investors with the launch of the MFS Global Contrarian Equity Trust (Trust), which deploys an actively managed global equity strategy to target asymmetric investment opportunities.

The new Trust follows MFS’ Contrarian Capital global investment strategy, which employs a bottom-up fundamental approach to identify divergences between the price and value of large-cap companies experiencing controversy or in transition as they navigate such events as corporate restructuring, special situations, cyclical or structural adjustments, a temporary impairment of the business model or bad news not reflected in the fundamentals.

The Strategy generally selects between 30 and 60 securities using bottom-up fundamental analysis that is sector and region agnostic and benchmark unconstrained. Each security is screened for value and critically, for change, which is arguably more difficult to measure and requires a dedicated team of global analysts familiar with the businesses and industries involved. With an investment objective of long-term capital appreciation over a full market cycle, it invests in a diversified portfolio of global equity securities of companies located in developed and emerging market countries.

The Trust, available to Australian institutional and wholesale investors, is the latest to roll out locally, and provides exposure to the MFS® Contrarian Capital Strategy, which was developed in response to demand from Australian investors. MFS based the trust on the popular MFS® Contrarian Value Strategy, which became restricted to new investment in 2023 due to capacity constraints. The new trust has the same investment philosophy and leaders, co–portfolio managers Anne-Christine (AC) Farstad and Zahid Kassam, but offers a larger-cap investment mandate with substantial capacity.

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