Jeff Thomson

Leading Australian and global equities boutique fund manager Alphinity Investment Management has launched a global sustainable strategy that aims to invest in quality global companies which are supporting the transition to a more sustainable future and are also identified as undervalued and within an earnings upgrade cycle.

The new Alphinity Global Sustainable Equity Fund (Fund) retains the concentrated nature and investment approach of the well-established Alphinity Global Equity Fund, which has returned 14.4% p.a.^[1] after fees since inception in December 2015 (as at 30 June 2021), but also applies the same rigorous sustainable and ESG methodology currently used by the Alphinity Australian Sustainable Share Fund (launched in 2010).

The new Fund seeks to invest in a diversified portfolio of leading sustainable companies that offer attractive financial returns, have strong ESG practices, and are aligned with one or more of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)^[2]. These SDGs cover key themes like equality, promoting healthier lives and well being, building resilient infrastructure and combating climate change.

A Sustainable Compliance Committee, including two recognised independent ESG experts, supported by Jessica Cairns, Alphinity’s ESG and Sustainability Manager, provide specialist insights and also ensure the Fund remains ‘true-to-label’ and aligned with the fund’s Charter.

Portfolio Manager, Jeff Thomson said he and the Alphinity Global team focus on companies that ‘do good’ and ‘do it well’. They also seek to avoid companies that are involved in activities that are incompatible with the objectives of the Fund, may be harmful to society and are inconsistent with the UN SDGs.

“We have a zero revenue tolerance for producers of tobacco and controversial weapons. We also don’t support companies generating more than 5% of their revenues from the production of fossil fuels, controversial fuels such as uranium, gold mining where gold is the primary purpose of the mine, factory farming, live exports, predatory lending, alcohol and gambling, and old growth forestry logging, for example.”

Mr Thomson said other no-go companies were those that have demonstrated poor management of ESG issues such as breaching human rights principles, unnecessary pollution or avoiding a fair share of tax payments.

“When we come across a grey area related to ESG issues or alignment with the SDGs the Sustainable Compliance Committee assesses the matter and determines whether Alphinity can support the company’s activities.  The Committee includes Elaine Prior, an award-winning ESG pioneer and former managing director at Citi Research in Sydney, and lawyer Melissa Stewart, a Canadian modern slavery and human rights expert.

“Only those companies that meet these stringent sustainability conditions are then assessed against Alphinity’s investment philosophy and process to ensure they are quality undervalued companies in or entering an earnings upgrade cycle and are therefore candidates for our portfolio,” Mr Thomson said.

Alphinity Investment Management is supported by Challenger Limited subsidiary Fidante Partners, which forms long term alliances with talented investment teams to support and grow specialist investment management businesses.

———-

[1] Source: Fidante Partners: returns are calculated after fees have been deducted and assume distributions have been reinvested. No allowance is made for tax when calculating these figures. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
[2] ‘Strong ESG practices’ means companies that are not rated B or C by our external ESG research provider, MSCI, subject to review by the Sustainable Compliance Committee.

The post Alphinity Investment Management launches Global Sustainable Equity Fund appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Mary Manning

Leading Australian and global equities boutique fund manager Alphinity Investment Management has added two highly experienced portfolio managers to its global equities fund management team.

Mary Manning will join Alphinity in mid-July. She brings 25 years of international experience to the Alphinity global team, most recently as a portfolio manager of the Ellerston Capital Asia Growth Fund, India Fund and Ellerston Asian Investments listed investment company.

Mary had been with Ellerston since 2012, and prior to that worked in several investing roles between 2001 and 2010 at Oaktree Capital as well as Soros Funds Management, based in New York and Singapore. Mary has completed an MBA at Harvard Business School and a PhD in Economics at the University of Sydney, where she was an associate lecturer. She started her career in 1996 as an investment banking analyst at Citigroup, based in New York, London and Moscow.

Trent Masters, who has more than 20 years of investment experience, has joined Alphinity from Global Evolution Capital, which he founded in 2019 and where he managed a global absolute return fund, built around key growth themes and industrial evolutionary trends.

Prior to this, he spent more than a decade at Colonial First State Global Asset Management, primarily as a senior analyst covering a range of sectors, and also as a portfolio manager of global long-short funds and hedge fund-of-funds.

Trent started his career at Commonwealth Bank in 1999 in a strategy, mergers and acquisition team and holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) from Sydney University and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from FINSIA.

In their new roles Mary and Trent will help manage the $4bn Alphinity Global Equity Fund (Fund) which has returned 13.4% p.a. after fees since inception in December 2015 to 31 May 2021^[1]. The Fund seeks to invest in a concentrated set of quality companies, identified as undervalued and within an earnings upgrade cycle. Trent and Mary will also be actively involved in managing the newly launched Alphinity Global Sustainable Equity Fund.

Alphinity Global Portfolio Manager Jonas Palmqvist said he and fellow Global Portfolio Managers Jeff Thomson and Nikki Thomas are delighted to welcome the pair as colleagues and partners.

“Trent and Mary bring a tremendous depth of experience and investment pedigree to Alphinity that will help reinforce and sustain the track record of excellence we have been able to establish and embed. Importantly, their complementary, diverse backgrounds bring new and alternative perspectives that will enrich discussions as we work though our well-established investment process,” he said.

Alphinity Investment Management is supported by Challenger Limited subsidiary Fidante Partners, which forms long term alliances with talented investment teams to support and grow specialist investment management businesses.

———

[1] Source: Fidante Partners: returns are calculated after fees have been deducted and assume distributions have been reinvested. No allowance is made for tax when calculating these figures. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

The post Alphinity Investment Management appoints two global fund portfolio managers appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Jonas Palmqvist

The Alphinity Global Equity Fund (the Fund) celebrated its third anniversary in December and was recently awarded a ‘Recommended’ rating by Zenith.

In addition, the Fund received a four-star Overall Morningstar Rating as at 31 December 2018. The strategy, which sits under the umbrella of leading Australian boutique fund manager, Alphinity Investment Management, is run by a separate team focused on global opportunities.

Alphinity Investment Management was established in July 2010 and built a formidable reputation for its consistent outperformance managing Australian equities. This success saw it add global capability to its team and launch the Fund on 21 December 2015. The Fund has outperformed MSCI World Net Return (AUD) across all reported time periods to 31 December 2018*, returning 8.2% per annum since inception, 11.5% per annum over two years, and 2.4% over the past year, including the recent market correction (all figures net of fees).

Alphinity’s global fund is managed by four portfolio managers, each with more than 20 years of experience; Jonas Palmqvist, Jeff Thomson, Lachlan MacGregor and Nikki Thomas.

The team’s investment philosophy is to provide investors with an actively managed exposure to a high conviction portfolio of leading global companies with underappreciated earnings growth potential. It identifies these companies using a unique partnership between detailed analyst-driven fundamental research and specific targeted quantitative inputs.

In its rating report, Zenith described the Fund as ‘well managed’ by a ‘highly experienced’ team of investment professionals and said the team’s investment process was ‘intuitive and robust’. Alphinity’s global strategy has $1 billion of funds under management, of which around $37 million are from early investors in the retail Fund.

Jonas Palmqvist said the fund management team was appreciative of the institutional support the Fund had received in its first three years and was looking forward to bringing the Fund to retail investors this year now it has a strong track record.

“The key to our success and the recent Zenith rating has been what we call ‘conviction with consistency’” said Jeff Thomson. “The Fund typically holds only 30 to 45 stocks but with broad diversity across market sectors and regions. We focus on rigorously testing and refining our best ideas to the point where we have a high degree of comfort that the ones we invest in will achieve strong returns. As the world backdrop changes, we adapt the portfolio and this has seen the strategy outperform across all time periods since inception.”

Alphinity Investment Management is supported by its minority shareholder, Fidante Partners, the boutique funds management business of Challenger Limited.

The post Alphinity Global Equity Fund passes three year milestone, receives ‘Recommended’ Zenith rating appeared first on AdviserVoice.