CONTRARIAN AND SMALL/MICROCAP VALUE BASED
The fund will have a bias to search for investments that most fund managers ignore.
Reasons other funds might neglect certain stocks:
- Market cap is too small (we are capping our AUMs at a very small amount).
- Illiquidity (our low AUMs and patient client base will help us take a long term view).
- Unfashionable (we have always been contrarian investors, we don’t need to promote exciting stocks solely for the purpose of attracting new fund inflows).
- Unusual (if it happens to be a hybrid security, complicated merger, scrip takeover, we are happy to put in the time and effort to understand it).
- Under researched (we prefer to research stocks that have no broker coverage).
- Not focusing on after tax returns (traditional funds may focus on pre tax returns which are promoted, we have significant skin in the game and therefore conscious of after tax outcomes).
- Hidden value – (we are not interested in trying to be experts on all constituents of the ASX200, we do however thoroughly search the accounts across a more concentrated watchlist for hidden value in smaller companies).
- Flexibility – Whilst we usually find our “edge” in smaller stocks, we retain flexibility across our portfolio that some fund managers don’t have the luxury of. Larger cap and more liquid stocks will also present opportunities from time to time.
SPECIAL SITUATIONS INVESTING
There will be frequent examples of holdings in our portfolio that others would describe as “special situations investing”. Examples such as wind ups, takeover arbitrages, stocks cum large capital returns/franked dividends, spinoffs, stocks trading at large discounts to asset backing, etc.
Assurance Capital Pty Ltd 