In a low return, high volatility environment that may threaten the lifestyle hopes of a generation of Australian’s and where outperforming an equity index may still fail to deliver on investor’s goals, Monash Investors Pty Limited (“Monash Investors”) offers an investment strategy that may deliver what investors may be looking for: long term certainty, strong returns and capital preservation.
Since the launch of the Monash Absolute Investment Fund (The Fund) in July 2012, Monash Investors is pleased that it has delivered consistent returns, with materially lower volatility than the Australian equity market – an outcome that advisers and investors are now demanding more of in their portfolios, as they move to objective-based and goals-based advice.
Commenting on the Fund’s four year anniversary, Simon Shields, the firm’s founder said, “When we established Monash Investors in 2012, we had a simple idea, and that idea was to build a portfolio that would reliably grow investor’s wealth with the aim to deliver after fee returns of between 12-15% per annum over a full market cycle, and avoid loss of capital in each financial year. To achieve these goals, we had to do something different from the crowd. We had to set the bar very high in terms of the return requirement for a stock to make it into our portfolio, we had to have more flexibility in terms of being able to go long and short, be stock size and style agnostic and be benchmark unware. We also provided capacity for the Fund to invest in pre-IPO stocks such as Catapult, which has risen over 10 times since our initial purchase.”
Pleasingly, Monash Investors have achieved their dual objectives since the Fund’s inception in July 2012, achieving a 14.1% return over four years (after all fees), with no loss of capital in any of the financial years that the Fund has been operating – of course, none of these targets can be guaranteed in the future. Importantly for investors, these performance outcomes have been achieved with a very low net exposure to the market, having little to no leverage, with an average beta of 0.58 over the four-year track record.
In recognition of these strong results, leading research house SQM*, has recently awarded the Monash Absolute Investment Fund (the Fund) a Superior rating, which they suggest makes the Fund suitable for inclusion on most Approved Product Lists (“APL’s). Commenting on the high rating, Andrew Fairweather of Winston Capital Partners said, “We are experiencing strong demand for the Fund from a variety of IFAs and family offices who are moving to objective based advice – the Fund provides a great solution for those who want exposure to growth assets but with less volatility than the market, and with more certainty in terms of the investment outcomes. Since inception, the Fund has delivered on its two return objectives in what has been a very tough market environment.”
