Nedgroup Investments appoints Orthogonal Investments
Nedgroup Investments today announced the appointment of Rowan Williams-Short and Douw Steenekamp to manage the Nedgroup Investments Equity Fund, and of Rowan and Dudu Tembo to manage the Nedgroup Investments Renaissance Fund, both effective from 1 July 2007.
Nic Andrew, Head of Nedgroup Investments says: 'We are very excited by these appointments. Rowan and the team that he has established at newly formed Orthogonal Investments have a wealth of investment management experience, with impressive personal track records. We are confident that the Orthogonal team, which also includes experienced money manager, Pierre Marais, will continue to ensure consistent, long-term outperformance for these two funds through the application of their disciplined, dispassionate investment philosophy.'
We have long advocated the benefits of investment management firms that are owner-managed and focused, as we believe that this creates a significant alignment of interests between the managers and their investors. We have seen the benefit of these structural advantages in many of our Best of breedTM funds, said Andrew.
Williams-Short, Chief Investment Officer at Orthogonal says: 'We're thrilled by these appointments, as it allows us to do what we believe we do best, namely third-party portfolio management, and leaves the distribution and branding of retail investment products in the capable hands of Nedgroup Investments'.
He adds that, drawing on experience gained from his analysis of hundreds of fund managers around the globe over the past two years, Orthogonal Investments has designed itself in ways that are conducive to producing superior risk adjusted performance. These include: ensuring ownership of the business by the investment team via direct shareholding; doing nothing but investment research and portfolio management, while outsourcing all other functions; bringing on board only analysts with whom he has personally worked for a minimum of five years, all of whom share a common investment philosophy; strictly limiting the range of fund mandates accepted; being prepared to close to new business once the number of clients and/or the size of assets under management threatens the best interests of existing clients; and not perceiving risk as being too different to other asset managers (which is primarily a business risk management tool and not a portfolio management risk tool).
'We will manage the two funds to their current respective fund objectives and benchmarks in terms of our investment philosophy, which is based on rigorous fundamental analysis and a quantitative overlay, whereby we construct portfolios to avoid significant underperformance. We focus as much on which shares and assets to avoid, as on which to include.' Williams-Short explained.
Andrew concluded: 'On behalf of investors in the Nedgroup Investments Equity and Renaissance Funds, I would like to acknowledge and thank current managers, Rob Nagel and Heather Jackson for their professional efforts in managing these funds to the benefit of investors. We believe that, notwithstanding the good performance achieved by these managers, the strategic direction of Cadiz African Harvest Asset Management necessitated a review of the fund management by Nedgroup Investments.'
