The Fund aims to outperform the S&P/ASX 300 Industrials Accumulation Index – excluding the top five stocks by market capitalisation – by between 4% to 6% a year before fees over rolling three-year periods.

The rating news suggests Zenith views the Fund as a strong investment within its asset class and included the fact it is managed by BlackRock’s Sydney-based Australian Fundamental Active Equity (FAE) team. This is led by Charlie Lanchester, who holds more than 22 years’ investment management experience.

Zenith said: “Although the team and strategy is relatively new for BlackRock, Zenith believes the Fund is managed by an experienced investment team utilising a well-established investment process. Zenith holds a positive view on BlackRock’s portfolio construction process, as we believe it is structured to ensure a close connection between analyst research and the final portfolio.”

Lanchester said: “The team employs a fundamentals-driven, bottom-up research methodology to identify investment opportunities in domestically-listed industrial securities. We follow a disciplined investment process with high-conviction ideas, concentrating on 20-40 stocks.”

Iris Davila, a Director of BlackRock’s Wealth Advisory business, said: “The Zenith rating, coupled with the BT Wrap and Asgard eWrap exposure, will provide a good number of advisers with early access to a new Australian equity offering.”

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The appointments represent an expansion of BlackRock’s investment capabilities and reflect widening investor appetites for the compelling investment opportunities throughout the region as BlackRock grows its business in Australia and Asia Pacific.

Charlie was previously the Deputy Head of Australian Equities at Perpetual Investments, where he worked for 14 years and had primary responsibility for a number of portfolios. Prior to that Charlie was an analyst at Platinum Asset Management in Sydney and started his career at Schroders in London.

Madeleine has more than 20 years’ experience in funds management and stockbroking, holding numerous senior roles including Fund Manager and Head of European Research at M&G Investments in London, and Equity analyst at Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (London) and Salomon Brothers (Sydney).

Charlie and Madeleine start at BlackRock on 1 June 2015, and will be charged with building out a fundamental equities team and developing a product offering for clients. Charlie will report to Belinda Boa, the Hong Kong based Chief Investment Officer of Alpha Strategies, Asia Pacific.

Announcing the appointments, Justin Arter, Country Head of BlackRock Australia said: “It is important for the future of BlackRock Australia that we participate in all the major investment areas of our clients, and fundamental equities is a core component for investors in Australia.”

“The BlackRock Australia business will benefit greatly from having a fundamental equities team alongside our domestic fixed income, multi-asset, property and scientific active equities businesses.”

“Charlie and Madeleine will add a new dimension to BlackRock Australia which has grown strongly over the past three years.”

Belinda Boa added: “The Australian market holds a lot of opportunity for top-performing fundamental equity teams, whether raising assets locally or supplementing global mandates managed elsewhere. By bringing top investors like Charlie and Madeleine to BlackRock, we are building our fundamental equity capabilities here and world-wide and complementing the successful quantitative equity work already under way in Australia.”

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