The benefits of active management in tumultuous times
PORTFOLIO
Top Holdings (alphabetically)
Sector Breakdown
Capitalisation Breakdown
Country Breakdown
Custom Sector Breakdown
PERFORMANCE
Performance Table
NET PERFORMANCE FOR PERIODS ENDING 29 Feb 20201
Performance Chart
NET PERFORMANCE SINCE INCEPTION2
COMMENTARY
It’s been a tumultuous month, dominated by headlines about the Coronavirus. Markets have not reacted well, and have fallen precipitously and rapidly. The fund itself, however, has been exceptionally well-positioned.
For some time now we have been concerned about the irrational market exuberance and the decoupling between underlying economic fundamentals and ever-higher share prices. We took 3 important steps to moderate our exposure to what we saw as a likely undesirable event.
Firstly, we built up significant firepower by taking a lot of equity risk off the table and converting it to cash. We sold significant amounts of big winners like CSL, ResMed, CreditCorp and Aristocrat, giving us a very comfortable cash pile, or dry powder. We’re now waiting for opportunities with cash making up about 17% of the portfolio.
Secondly, we took out insurance. We bought puts, derivatives that make money if markets come down (like an insurance policy for stocks). There were times when it felt like we were just tearing up money which was counterbalanced by the positive performance of the portfolio, and when the insurance was required it worked exceptionally well. For example, some of our puts went from a value of approximately 30 cents per contract to approximately $3 per contract. This is what funds need when times get tough.
Thirdly, we focused our portfolio on defensive ‘toilet-paper-and-toothpaste’ type companies.
Telstra and Evolution Mining are great examples of this.
It should come as no surprise that Telstra is now the biggest position in our portfolio. We like Telstra for two reasons. Firstly, approximately 40 cents in the dollar is from their long-term government contracts, as they rent parts of their infrastructure to the NBN. We view this component of their business like we would a government bond. Secondly, the demand for data has been growing strongly and we think it will grow even more strongly as people stop travelling and use more data for remote meetings and video conferences. Telstra own the biggest data network in the country and are strongly positioned to take advantage of this phenomenon.
Then there’s Evolution Mining. While we don’t generally try to predict the price of gold, we like Evolution because we think it is the cheapest gold factory in Australia. This means that they make more money, per ounce of gold mined, than any company in Australia. This allows us to be fairly price-insensitive in relation to the gold price.
A lot of people have asked us recently, “what is causing this massive dislocation in the market?” We believe that there widespread fear in the market and that this has been exaggerated by the large amount of money that has flown into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in recent years.
For a long time, the broader retail market has taken a view that it doesn’t need to pay fees to fund managers because it can just buy the index. We’ve always likened this to buying a Mercedes-Benz and getting a cheap deal because it comes without brakes. A large part of our job as active fund managers is to engineer the brakes. In our fund in particular, our job is to determine when risks are high and when stock prices, or the valuations of the stock prices, have decoupled from underlying fundamentals.
This has been one of those cases and hence our 3-pillar strategy of having significant powder dry, insurance through puts and a particular focus on defensive ‘toilet-paper-and-toothpaste’ type businesses has stood our customers in good stead.
As always, we remain focused on capital preservation and are very well prepared for this higher period of volatility. We’ve been fascinated by the rapid turn from investors focus on FOMO (‘fear of missing out’), and TINA (‘there’s no alternative to equities’) to suddenly, just fear. We’ve been able to buy some of our favourite companies at 20 – 25% discounts to what they were trading at, at the beginning of the month.
We’re not jumping in, boots and all, we’re using our bullets wisely and we expect a very good outcome.
PERFORMANCE TABLE
FUND PERFORMANCE (A$, NET OF FEES)
PROFILE
Platform Availability
- AMP MyNorth
- Asgard Element (Masterfund)
- Asgard – E Wrap, Master Trust, Infinity
- AET Wholesale Access Fund
- BT Panorama
- BT Wrap
- Colonial First Choice
- Centric IDPS
- First Wrap
- FNZ
- HUB24
- IOOF Pursuit
- IOOF
- Macquarie Wrap
- MLC Wrap
- Mason Stevens
- Navigator
- Netwealth
- OneVue
- Omniport(lifespan)
- Powerwrap
- Praemium
- uXchange
STATISTICAL DATA
PORTFOLIO SUMMARY
FEATURES
- APIR CODE PCL0005AU
- REDEMPTION PRICEA$ 1.8631
-
FEES *
Management Fee: 1.025%
Performance Fee: 10.25% - Minimum initial investment A$10,000
- FUM AT MONTH END A$ 966.34m
- STRATEGY INCEPTION DATE 1 July 2008
- BenchmarkThe RBA Cash Rate Target plus Australian equity risk premium.
Fund Managers
Rhett Kessler
CIO and Senior Fund Manager
Anton du Preez
Deputy CIO and Fund Manager
Description
The Pengana Australian Equities Fund aims to enhance and preserve investor wealth over a 5- year period via a concentrated core portfolio of principally Australian listed securities. The Fund uses fundamental research to evaluate investments capable of generating the target return over the medium term. Essentially, we are in the business of seeking to preserve capital and make money – we are not in the business of trying to beat the market. We remain focused on acquiring and holding investments that offer predictable, sustainable and well-stewarded after-tax cash earnings yields in excess of 6% that will grow to double digit levels as a percentage of our original entry price in five years. We believe that building a well-diversified portfolio of these “gifts that keep on giving” represents a meaningful way to create and preserve financial independence for our co-investors.
EXPLORE OUR FUNDS
1. Net performance figures are shown after all fees and expenses, and assume reinvestment of distributions. The benchmark of cash rate plus 6% p.a. is included in the chart as it relates to the Fund’s investment objective and performance fee. The Fund may invest up to 100% of its assets in equity securities. The greater risk of investing in equities is reflected in the addition of a margin above the cash rate. No allowance has been made for buy/sell spreads. Please refer to the PDS for information regarding risks. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance, the value of investments can go up and down.
2. Inception 1st July 2008.
3. Annualised standard deviation since inception.
4. Relative to ASX All Ordinaries Index. Using daily returns.
*(including GST, net of RITC) of the increase in net asset value subject to the RBA Cash Rate & High Water Mark. For further information regarding fees please see the PDS available on our website.