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Fairtree Capital Bull Run

02 February 2018 Kobus Nel, Fairtree Capital
Kobus Nel, CEO of Fairtree Capital.

Kobus Nel, CEO of Fairtree Capital.

Fairtree Capital scooped three Raging Bull awards in the competition, believed to be the “Oscars” of the asset management industry held in Cape Town this week.

The award ceremony honoured unit trust companies and funds for top performance over periods to the end of last year. Fairtree was nominated in four categories, winning three bulls and a certificate:

• Raging Bull : Fairtree Equity Prescient Fund – best South African Equity General fund –straight line performance over 3 years
• Raging Bull : Fairtree Equity Prescient Fund Equity - best South African Equity General Fund on a risk adjusted basis
• Raging Bull : Fairtree Flexible Income Plus Prescient Fund – best South African Interest Bearing Fund– straight line performance over 3 years
• Certificate : Fairtree Flexible Income Plus Prescient Fund – best South African Multi-Asset Income fund – straight line performance over 3 years

CEO, Kobus Nel, confirmed Fairtree Capital’s delight:

“We are absolutely delighted to have been recognized at the Raging Bull awards for three Raging Bulls and a best-in-category certificate. It is an immense honour as it affirms our dedication to our sound investment philosophy, creating long-term wealth for our clients,” said Nel.

He made special mention of long and valuable relationships with clients and their advisers and thanked them for their continued support and trust.

Raging Bull winners, Stephen Brown and Cor Booysen are co-portfolio managers of the Fairtree Equity Prescient Fund, which returned 164.08% or 17.05% per annum over the period November 2011 to December 2017.

Brown and Booysen believe their investment philosophy of holistic, diversified and flexible are the keys to the fund’s performance.

“Due to the externalised nature of the South African equity market, we believe that both top down and bottom up analysis are required to make sound investment decisions,” said Brown.

Booysen added that their well-diversified portfolio is positioned to perform under most outcomes, than to concentrate the portfolio towards a few positions that will do well during a single economic outcome.

“We believe that we must have the willingness and the ability to change our portfolio when the environment changes, adapting quickly to changes in the economic conditions that affect the earnings outlook of companies,” said Booysen.

“Our investment approach is very flexible and we regularly review and adjust our exposure to different market sectors for the prevailing market conditions. We believe it will allow us to provide clients with consist superior investment performance in most market conditions,” Brown added.

The second Raging Bull winners, Paul Crawford and Louis Antelme, co-portfolio managers of the Fairtree Flexible Income Plus Prescient Fund, said the fund’s mandate is to provide superior risk-adjusted returns over and above cash to their clients irrespective of market conditions.

The fund’s total return since June 2013 to end December 2017 is 52.43% or 9.63% per annum after fees (source: Morningstar) compared to SA’s CPI rate over the same period of 27.22% or 5.39% per annum respectively.

“We believe that markets are not always efficient and therefore present mispriced opportunities, which can be taken advantage of to generate excess returns. We aim to seek out mispriced risk in the market consisting of inter and intra market arbitrage,” said Crawford.

Fairtree’s disciplined approach to quantitative analysis within a team framework helped identify these mispriced assets.

“We believe that a team-based quantitative approach to the valuation of assets, combined with cutting-edge portfolio construction techniques and risk management help build a fund to achieve the stated objectives of superior risk-adjusted returns,” added Antelme.

The annual awards are hosted by Personal Finance, a publication of independent media and co-sponsored by PlexCrown and the Profile Data Group.

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