Alex Duffy

Fidelity International has been rewarded for its investment approach after being announced as the winner across two categories at the 2019 Zenith Fund Awards, including Australian Equities – Small Caps and International Equities – Emerging Markets and Regional.

The awards, hosted by Zenith Investment Partners, were announced at a lunch in Sydney yesterday, and recognise and encourage excellence in funds management. Each of the awards is based on long-term factors derived from Zenith’s extensive research and due diligence of fund managers including: 

• organisational and investment team strength,
• investment philosophy, 
• security valuation and selection,
• portfolio construction,
• risk management, and
• fees.

Zenith also looks at quantitative aspects of the funds longer term returns to investors in determining the award winners. It believes that recognising and encouraging excellence in funds management across all asset classes and disciplines is fundamental to raising the standards of funds management in the industry for the ultimate benefit of investors.

Fidelity’s Australian small and mid-cap fund, Fidelity Future Leaders Fund, is managed by James Abela and was launched in July 2013. Over the last year, it has returned 11.16 per cent after fees, compared to the benchmark return of 3.69 per cent*.  

The fund gives investors access to a diversified portfolio of between 40 to 70 stocks from listed Australian small to mid-cap companies. Mr Abela, who has 22 years’ investment experience, employs a rigorous bottom-up stock selection process that focuses on finding attractively valued companies with strong competitive positioning and sound company management.

Fidelity International director of consultant relationships, Andrew Mellor, said the fund is supported by a highly experienced Australian research team with a global network of 400 investment professionals.

“This award is recognition of the success of our efforts within the Australian equities space and testament to James’ sound investment approach which aims to deliver consistent returns through different market cycles,” he said.

The asset manager was also recognised for its performance within emerging markets investing. Fidelity International’s range of emerging market funds cover Asia, Emerging Markets, China and India, with the Fidelity Global Emerging Markets Fund offering investors access to a prudent investment approach that aims to provide attractive returns over time, while minimising loss of capital.

Mr Mellor said the fund has a particularly strong track record backed by more than 20 years’ experience investing in emerging markets, informed by over 50 on-the-ground analysts.

“Portfolio manager Alex Duffy applies a rigorous bottom-up stock selection process that focuses on companies that we believe are well positioned to generate returns through market cycles and have demonstrated a track record of strong corporate governance. Again, this award is validation that our investment approach [within emerging markets] is robust and hopefully our performance and returns will continue to exceed expectations,” he said.

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In this role, Andrew will assist in the positioning of Fidelity’s investment capability with research consultants.

Andrew was previously Account Manager of Research at Colonial First State, where he managed key relationships across the research houses and represented all CFSGAM investment strategies.

Prior to that, he was Senior Associate Consultant Relations at AllianceBernstein. Andrew has also held positions at Perpetual, JP Morgan and Henderson Global Investors. He is a CFA Charterholder and has completed the Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) program.

Andrew reports to Katie Whiffen, Director of Research and Product at Fidelity, who said “Andrew’s appointment expands our institutional support and product relationship capabilities to meet increased demand from these sectors for our funds.”

Fidelity has increased its funds under management over the past year by more than 20% to over $9 billion in its Australian, global and Asian equity funds.

2 August 2012

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