Demand for industrial office space is strong at the moment, but keep an eye on office property too, say Pendal property investment managers Pete Davidson and Julia Forrest

• Industrial real estate in high demand.
• Office market set for an oversupply.
• Supply-demand equation out of sync

AS THE dramatic shift to online shopping continues, the rule of thumb in the property world is that for every metre you take out of retail space, you need to put three into warehousing space.

That’s because forklifts need room to operate and much more space is needed for packaging.

It’s one of the reasons demand for industrial office space is so strong. Yet many large investment funds are underweight industrial office space.

There’s a conundrum in the office property market as well.  Why are so many office buildings being built when people are working from home?

To investors outside the sector, office and industrial property can be harder to understand than residential and retail property.

“Demand for industrial real estate is particularly strong,” says Peter Davidson, head of listed property at Pendal.

“We all know there’s a trend to online retailing. You need much more space — and Aussie retailers have got a long way to go in terms of online fulfillment.

“The rule of thumb is that rent growth accelerates when you get above 10 to 12 per cent of retail spend being online — and that’s where we are now,” Davidson says.

“Also, you have this trend to more manufacturing in Australia. We used to talk about just-in-time inventory, but now there is demand for just-in-case inventory. Supply chains are getting longer,” Davidson says.

Strong demand for industrial property

These trends mean demand for industrial property is strong.

Yet institutional investors remain underweight industrial property.

Why?

“It’s the size of the assets,” says Pendal portfolio manager Julia Forrest. “You might pay a billion dollars for an office building in a CBD whereas industrial tends to be much smaller transaction sizes.

“While the perception of the asset class has changed over the past 15 years, it started from a very low base.

“Investors have always been overweight retail malls and office. It’s been quite difficult to become overweight industrial,” she says. That’s why the pace of transactions has lifted.”

Office property is a very cyclical asset and it’s very tradeable, with investors able to buy and sell shares in real estate investment trusts on share markets.

“The key issue in office is typically excess supply. If you suddenly get a lot of cranes in the sky you can get too much supply and that’s a problem,” Davidson says.

“But now there’s this structural issue where lots of people are working from home. There are segments of the office market, such as call centres, which will always be done at home. They won’t go back to the office.”

“On the plus side of the ledger, when people do go back to work, each person will probably require a larger space because of social distancing.”

Many workers want a return to the office

“Frankly, I think there will be a sense of relief for many people that want to get back into the office environment,” Davidson says. “At the moment many of us aren’t sure if it’s work from home, or sleep at work.

“So office in this situation is where more supply is coming, and there’s this structural element where people will be working from home.”

The dynamic of having more supply coming, even as people are working from home, is unusual, Forrest says. But it’s happening because bond yields are so low.

“You’ve got this supply pipeline which impacts rents. But asset values are still intact, developers are happy to develop. In other cycles you have asset values more tied to the rental outlook,” Forrest says.

“It could result in a reasonable oversupply which ultimately does affect rents and the returns of the asset class.”

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About Pete Davidson, Julia Forrest and Pendal Property Securities Fund

Julia Forrest has managed Pendal’s property trust portfolios for more than a decade. She has 25 years of experience spanning equities research and advisory, initial public offerings and capital raisings.

Pete Davidson is Pendal’s Head of Listed Property. Over the past 34 years Pete has held financial markets roles spanning portfolio management, advisory and treasury markets. he specialises in the property, retail, insurance and infrastructure sectors.

Pendal Property Securities Fund invests mainly in Australian listed property securities including listed property trusts, developers and infrastructure investments.

Pendal is an independent, global investment management business focused on delivering superior investment returns for our clients through active management.

Contact a Pendal key account manager here

Significant Features: The Pendal Managed Cash Fund is an actively managed portfolio of Australian cash and short-term fixed interest securities.

Fund Objective: The Fund aims to provide a return (before fees, costs and taxes) that exceeds the Bloomberg AusBond Bank Bill Index*.

Four themes characterised full-year earnings season 2021 and will set the tone for how the market trades from here, says Pendal’s head of equities Crispin Murray

• Growth stocks back in favour as stimulus wanes
• June quarter underpins confidence in underlying demand
• ESG drives corporate activity

THIS YEAR ended up being “just as unpredictable as 2020,” Pendal’s head of equities Crispin Murray said at his bi-annual Beyond the Numbers webinar this week.

(Register to watch a replay here.)

“The pandemic has bitten back with the delta wave, we had peak growth as stimulus flowed through in the US and now we’re contemplating how central banks extract themselves from emergency policy measures.

“China continues to be belligerent on trade and has also had a slowdown driven by global growth slowing and by their own delta wave.

“And finally, we continue to see the impact of ESG in terms of ratings of companies and company strategy.”

It would be natural to think markets would struggle amid the disruption.

But instead, equities have risen almost 15 per cent in the last six months in Australia.

“It’s easy to say it’s been driven by earnings because earnings revisions have been material.

“But when you actually dig down it’s a little bit more complicated than that.”

The resources sector has seen substantial growth in profits but a significant derating as investors discount future growth, while industrials and banks have been re-rated by the market despite more modest earnings growth.

“I would look at those returns in the last six months and say about half of it really is a function of earnings and still another half is to do with the continued rise of ratings, which reflects a fall of about 50 basis points in bonds,” say Murray.

Murray says the earnings season was characterised by four distinct themes:

Growth stocks return

As risks to the pace of economic growth emerged, markets re-rated companies that could generate their own growth.

The more muted economic outlook is driven by a few different factors. Government stimulus is fading amid the rise of the delta COVID wave which has again triggered lockdowns and held back economic recovery.

Supply issues are affecting industry’s ability to meet demand. And overlaying it all is the prospect of a tapering of monetary policy support for economies and the risk of a policy mistake.

“It’s a combination of these factors that has led to the market just being a little bit wary on growth expectations.

“We’ve seen that in the rally in bonds.”

This means investors are once again putting a premium on growth stocks over value stocks.

Inflation is the big unknown that could derail this trend.

“The inflation debate is not yet dead,” says Murray.

Murray sees a few potential drivers of inflation. An ageing population is tightening the supply of labour while at the same time shifting consumer spending to areas like healthcare where productivity gains are less able to offset demand.

Supply chain fragmentation because of COVID risks lift costs for businesses. And the massive spending needed for the shift to clean energy has the potential to lift prices.

There is also a policy imperative in favour of inflation as it will allow governments to erode debt.

Paradox puzzles

Murray says two paradoxes emerged in reporting season.

The first was that amid the rotation to growth, some of the stocks that suffered the most under lockdown returned to market favour.

“There was enough evidence from the June quarter where we had a brief window where the economy was almost back to normal that there was pent up demand, and that these companies were seeing good leverage to that.”

The second was that there was a disconnect between earnings revisions and sector performance during the reporting season. Commodity stocks had strong earnings but performed badly while tech, gaming and discretionary consumer had poor earnings revisions but performed well.

“That was highlighting that the market is very much forward looking right now.”

Corporate activity

The size of corporate activity like mergers and acquisitions or asset sales has been materially higher this earnings season, says Murray.

This is driven partly by rising share prices which typically underpin M&A. The low cost of capital due to low interest rates and high liquidity is also driving activity.

There is also a “winner takes all business model mindset” emerging in growth industries driving companies to pay up for scale.

And in so-called sunset industries such as the fossil fuel sector there is a push to bulk up balance sheets by merging to reduce dependence on capital markets.

This is also being driven by ESG factors as companies reposition their businesses.

ESG (environmental, social and governance) factors

Environmental, social and governance factors are increasingly shaping how companies are behaving.

“We’ve moved from the phase where ESG was a focus on risks that were being underappreciated and under managed … what we’re now seeing is the allocation of capital being driven by this.

Some $250 billion cumulatively has flown into ESG funds, “but this is just a proxy”, says Murray.

“What we’re seeing is far more money behind this… a lot of existing equity funds are overlaying ESG filters in the way they invest.

“So, companies recognize now that there are certain pools of capital that they can only access if they have a certain type of strategy.”

This has led to a de-rating of fossil fuel industries despite a rising oil price.

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About Crispin Murray and Pendal Focus Australian Share Fund

Crispin Murray is Pendal’s Head of Equities. He has more than 27 years of investment experience and leads one of the largest equities teams in Australia. Crispin’s Pendal Focus Australian Share Fund has beaten the benchmark in 12 years of its 16-year history (after fees), across a range of market conditions.

Pendal is an independent, global investment management business focused on delivering superior investment returns for our clients through active management. 

Find out more about Pendal Focus Australian Share Fund here

Contact a Pendal key account manager here

Graeme is an analyst with over 17 years’ experience covering the Banking, Insurance and Diversified Financials sectors. He has previously worked as an equity analyst at Ausbil Dexia, ABN AMRO and Wilson HTM, spending a further 2 years as an actuarial analyst at Trowbridge Consulting. Graeme is a CFA Charterholder and holds bachelor’s degrees in Commerce and Law from the University of Sydney.

Significant Features: The Barrow Hanley Concentrated Global Share Fund No. 2 is an actively managed, concentrated portfolio of global shares and is diversified across a broad range of global sharemarkets.

Fund Objective: The Fund aims to provide a return (before fees, costs and taxes) that exceeds MSCI World ex Australia (Standard) Index (Net Dividends) in AUD over the medium to long term.

What do China’s recent regulatory changes mean? Where else should investors be looking in Asia? Pendal’s Samir Mehta has answers in this short video with portfolio specialist Chris Adams.

Watch the video or read the transcript below

TRANSCRIPT

Portfolio specialist Chris Adams speaks with Pendal Asian Share Fund portfolio manager Samir Mehta about investment opportunities in Asia

Portfolio Specialist Chris Adams:

If we think about the last 18 months or so there are a number of important pieces in play in the Asia region. There are questions about global supply chains, geopolitical tensions and a great diversity in terms of managing the human and economic consequences of Covid.

We’ve seen regulatory shifts in China that have dramatically altered the outlook for entire industries. All of this is driving heightened uncertainty, which drives the opportunity for active investors.

Today we want to share with you where we’re seeing the opportunity in Asia.

I’m joined by Samir Mehta, a senior fund manager at J O Hambro Capital Management. J O Hambro is part of Pendal Group. Samir has been investing in Asia for 31 years. He’s been with J O Hambro for since 2011 and he’s the manager of Pendal Asian Share Fund.

Samir, your funds had very strong relative performance over the last 12 months.

What are the key calls that you’ve made that have driven this?

Senior Fund Manager Samir Mehta:

Thank you, Chris. As you mentioned, there have been so many changes over the past two years or so.

When I look back at the last year of performance, two big things stand out in terms of the positioning of the fund.

First, I was reasonably early in taking cognisance of risks in China — particularly the regulatory risks — and therefore had a big underweight position in China.

If you go back in history even from 2018 onwards and look at the fund, I haven’t held any American-listed Chinese companies because the risks on ADRs was starting to come to the fore ever since the trade tensions between the US and the Chinese started to come in.

That prompted me to rethink the risks.

So there was the underweight position in China, particularly recognising the regulatory risks.

Second, in China valuations had gone to levels where I did find them to be a touch expensive.

And there’s a possibility of the Chinese economy slowing, having gone into Covid first in 2020 and coming out of it first in 2021.

Combined with that was a relatively big overweight position in India.

It’s a country you could say hasn’t really handled the Covid situation well yet.

There has been significant consolidation among businesses, which has allowed the better-managed companies to generate supernormal profits in what has definitely been a challenging year.

And we’ve had some very good stocks in our portfolio.

So those two – a big underweight in China and a big overweight in India – have effectively been the difference.

Chris Adams: The Chinese underweight obviously has been a good call. A lot of international investors are increasingly wary of China, given the signs of slowing growth and then the recent regulatory crackdown. So are you maintaining your Chinese underweight?

Samir Mehta: For the moment yes, but I also have been taking advantage of the dips that have come in.

As you know in July we had a big sell-down. I added to our existing holdings a couple of names like Tencent which is one of the large companies in China you would have heard about. And Meituan, which is the largest food delivery company.

When we had the complete panic towards the end of the month I did add to it at valuations I thought were quite cheap.

Then I’ve been running my screens because, as many of my peers around the world are starting to become a lot more cautious, I want to ask: “what can go right?”

Because now the risks are well known. The government’s come down quite hard on several industries, regulatory risks have come to the fore and there is, for example, in the education sector an attempt by the Chinese government to make them non-profit.

So the natural question people are asking is: “should we even invest in China?”

I say valuations are now reasonable and risks are to the fore.

Therefore it is incumbent on someone like me – who’s been lucky enough to be underweight in China – to take advantage of the situation, to find opportunities.

It’s not going to be immediate, but I do find several companies that I want to add in the portfolio in China.

Chris Adams: Can you tell us what kind of sectors might be attractive to you in China?

Samir Mehta: Yes sure. I did mention a couple of our existing holdings [above], which have good growth prospects, high returns on capitals and good cashflows.

I’ve then added a lens to ensure they are unlikely to be in contradiction with what the Chinese Communist Party wants for its society.

Tencent and Meituan for me are the standouts.

I realise games might be a controversial topic. But I feel at some point businesses will adapt and Tencent is already doing that.

They have curbed the ability for kids to use games. They’re looking for identification, etc.

And Meituan creates a phenomenal service for society. Imagine in a period of Covid, not having the ability to order food at home.

So these services I think are going to be quite critical.

Another sector to be aligned with policy of the party and the government is energy.

China has been a large emitter of carbon and has suddenly put its foot down in terms of what they want to achieve for the economy by 2030 or 2050 or 2060.

Energy is going to be a very large part of that attempt to move towards a carbon neutrality.

So in the portfolio, we own a company called ENN Energy. It transports natural gas which is much better than burning coal.

They’ve also gone into a business in industrial estates. In China there are hundreds of industrial estates spread around the country which used to have coal as a primary energy source.

ENN goes into these industrial assets, converts them from coal into natural gas, and takes over other utility functions such as steam and water.

So that’s one company I have.

The other thing I’m looking at is investments in the State grid. As the Chinese government and industries use a lot more solar and wind power, you need to have a smarter grid.

These smarter grids require significant investment in better automation and better control of how these alternative sources of energy are used in that grid.

I’ve looked at a couple of companies, one which I’ve already started to buy.

I prefer not to mention the name because I’m just starting out. But these are examples where I’m trying to make sure a) they are reasonably good in terms of what they do for society and b) I’m trying to be aligned with what the Party and the government wants.

Chris Adams: India and China are large allocations in the portfolio but that’s obviously not all there is to Asia. Can you give us a flavour of where else you’re finding opportunities? And what are some of the risks you’re thinking about – whether Covid or otherwise – when it comes to Asian equities at the moment?

Samir Mehta: If you look at one of our top holdings in the fund is a company called Kakao, a South Korean company which is completely digital – native digital as they say – and have done a marvelous job in several aspects.

They have a business in developing games. They are into music. They have a vertical that is into payments. They started a bank. They’re in cartoons and media properties.

The key has been their instant messaging platform called Kakao, which has 46 million monthly active users out of a total population of about 51.5 million people in Korea.

It is as dominant as you can get. They have the ability to create verticals around those customers.

The founder is very good. His ability to bring on professionals to run these verticals and give them autonomy has worked out very well.

Just to give you a bit of flavour, Kakao Bank is an internet-only bank. They launched it in 2017. That’s just four years ago.

They did an IPO last month. And today it trades at a valuation of $US30 billion. Kakao, the company we own in our portfolio, owns about 27.5 per cent of the bank.

Similarly, they own minority stakes in several of these verticals I mentioned earlier.

So Korea has been a good hunting ground for us and this is one exmaple.

Then south-east Asia I’m doing a lot more work on. It’s been one part of the world that has taken a really big hit from Covid.

Infrastructure has been poor. Governance in many of these countries hasn’t been up to scratch. The challenges from Covid have been particularly bad for companies in these countries and Southeast Asia.

As valuations have come off, people have ignored these countries.

Now my screens are showing many companies that are cheap.

So I’ve started to buy a company in Indonesia as well as one in the Philippines.

Again, I won’t say the names because I’m just starting to buy them.

But I do find in Southeast Asia companies are trading at valuations that are reflective of the risks. And if we are able to find better management of Covid – which I hope will happen over time – you might find these opportunities will deliver performance for our fund.

Taiwan I’ve been a bit underweight. The reason is it’s a primarily a technology-oriented market.

I feel at some point in time this massive bull run we’ve had in tech stocks – particularly around hardware and semiconductors – may be a bit long in the tooth. I’m a little bit cautious on that.

So I’m underweight in Taiwan – there are good businesses, but valued highly. So I’ve stuck to Korea and Southeast Asia – that’s where I’m now looking for opportunities.

Chris Adams: One final thing I want to touch on – which is increasingly important to investors here in Australia – is the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) element. It would be good to get your thoughts on ESG factors in Asia and how that figures into your process.

Samir Mehta: You mention a very good point. We have clients who are based in the US or Europe and have been at the forefront of ESG – just like Australians have been.

I’ve benefited from my clients asking me to think about ESG much earlier than what regulations have forced many fund managers to do.

In Asia you have to accept that we have a spectrum – it’s neither black nor white.

These are countries that are quite poor. Many of them are focused on development. Coal for industrial use – not only for generating electricity – is a very big portion.

This is a real challenge that we face. Governments and companies want to get towards a better and cleaner future but it is a very expensive proposition.

So I lean on my colleagues at Regnan (Pendal Group’s responsible investing business). They have world-class resources and expertise. I use their research to find companies that meet some of the best adherence to ESG principles.

We engage a lot with many of these companies and the issues are quite wide ranging.

I am not here to say that I’m going to be successful at every single one that we take on.

But we do try our best. With our colleagues at Regnan who provide such great and fantastic back-up, I’m able to hopefully achieve for our clients a very good outcome on ESG as well.

Chris Adams: Thank you Samir and thank you very much to our viewers today.

If you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to contact your Pendal account manager.

Thank you very much.

About Samir Mehta and Pendal Asian Share Fund

Samir manages Pendal’s Asian Share Fund, an actively managed portfolio of Asian shares excluding Japan and Australia. Samir is a senior fund manager at UK-based J O Hambro, which is part of Pendal Group.

Pendal Asian Share Fund aims to provide a return (before fees, costs and taxes) that exceeds the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan (Standard) Index (Net Dividends) in AUD over the medium-to-long term.

Find out about Pendal Asian Share Fund

About Pendal Group

Pendal is an independent, global investment management business focused on delivering superior investment returns for our clients through active management. 

Contact a Pendal key account manager.

James has nearly 24 years’ experience leading emerging markets funds, and throughout his career has been responsible for over 14 mandates with peak FUM of over $4bn. He previously headed the emerging market investment teams at SG Asset Management and most recently Baring Asset Management, where he managed numerous strategies with his colleague Paul Wimborne. He has also worked with Henderson Investors as a portfolio manager and with H Clarkson as an analyst. James is a CFA Charterholder and obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Geography) with honours from the University of Cambridge.

Here are the main factors driving Australian equities this week plus the key points of August reporting season from our head of equities Crispin Murray. Reported by portfolio specialist Chris Adams

>> Scroll down for Crispin’s four themes of August reporting season

>> Register for Crispin’s bi-annual Beyond The Numbers live webinar tomorrow (Tue Sep 7)

US PAYROLL data came in weaker than expected last week, putting paid to any residual risk of an earlier-than-expected tapering of Quantitative Easing (QE) purchases.

There probably wasn’t enough in the report to delay the expected commencement in December, however.

The US dollar weakened slightly, which helped commodities and resource stocks strengthen during the week. The S&P/ASX 300 was up 1.1% last week while the S&P 500 gained 0.62%.

COVID and vaccines

Vaccination trends remain constructive.

NSW is on track to reach full vaccination for 70% of the population by the end of this month and 80% by mid- October.

The national vaccinate rate is running at about 1.1% of the population per day. NSW is at 1.4%. We expect NSW case numbers to deteriorate further from here, peaking in late September before the effects of vaccination start to take hold.

The key issue is hospital capacity. There are 845 ICU beds in NSW, of which 172 (20%) are occupied by Covid patients. There is some scope for surge capacity. But we are mindful that when Covid patients reached about 40% ICU occupancy in the US it started to cause issues.

Victoria has 426 ICU according to the Department of Health. Queensland has roughly 30% less capacity per capita than NSW, while Western Australia has about 50% less ICU capacity per capita. This is a material factor in caution towards re-opening in these states.

The effect of children returning to school in the northern hemisphere will soon become apparent. Scotland returned two weeks earlier than England and experienced a renewed surge in Covid cases. This is something to watch. The number of patients in Scottish hospitals is still below 30% of peak levels. It’s below 20% in England.

It is worth noting that NSW now has a higher percentage of Covid patients in hospital than the UK. This is despite cases per capita at about 40% of UK levels, highlighting the impact of vaccine penetration.

In the US, cases and hospitalisations continue to plateau and the effective reproduction or R(eff) number is below 1 in the majority of states. R(eff) measures the average amount of people an infected person goes on to infect. The return to school is again likely delaying a roll-over in these numbers.

About 39% of the US population lives in areas with ICU occupancy greater than 85%. Breakthrough hospitalisations (hospitalisations of fully vaccinated patients) remains at 1.8% of all Covid admissions.

Economics

In the US, August payrolls came in much weaker than expected at the end of last week. There were 235,000 new jobs added, versus an expected 733,000. There were extensive upwards revisions for previous months, but not enough to compensate for a very soft result.

Leisure and hospitality provided the missing ingredients — where no new net jobs were added, versus 400,000 last month. Delta is playing a role here, but there is also a supply side effect of people taking time off after summer. This is likely to quash any further talk of an early tapering of QE.

We are mindful that wages continue to grow — up 0.6% month-on-month versus +0.3% expected and up 4.3% year-on-year. The unemployment rate also continues to drop — from 5.4% in July to 5.2% in August.

As a result, we think the expectation of a tapering announcement in November, to be commenced in December, remains reasonable.

The key point is this data takes some steam out of the service sector, limiting potential inflation from a large part of the economy, thereby extending the favourable environment for equities. 

This, combined with Biden’s slumping popularity, may provide impetus for more fiscal stimulus.

There is scope for adjustments to the infrastructure bill currently under debate so benefits are more front-ended. As benefits end in 2022 this may mean the fiscal cliff is not so high.  

The European Central Bank (ECB) meets this week. Some members have been talking about economic improvements and a rise in inflationary pressures, signalling a potential tapering of their own QE program.

European bond yields rose in response. The market is expecting a shift in the target from EUR80 billion to EUR70 billion a month — but there is risk of a bigger reduction.

Markets and August reporting season themes

Markets were quiet last week. There was something of a bounce in resources and energy, but growth stocks remain well supported.

It will be important to watch any response in the US dollar to ECB action this week. Any weakness in the USD would help commodities. There has also been some speculation around further Chinese stimulus, which would likewise be helpful.

There were four key themes to highlight from the full-year reporting season.

1. Rising fears of a slowing global economy. This led to underperformance in the mining and energy sectors.

2. Elevated merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. 2021 has already broken through previous highs in terms of the dollar value of M&A activity with four months still left to run. This reflects strong confidence in board rooms.

3. Confidence in a demand rebound. Management teams pointed to a better-than-expected June quarter – before restrictions were imposed – as evidence of strong underlying demand when the economy does re-open.

4. ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) was a major factor in corporate strategy. This was evident in BHP’s (BHP) shift out of oil and gas; moves by Woodside (WPL) and Santos (STO) to create scale to de-risk and become more cash-generative; more detail around Fortescue’s (FMG) FFI project; and BlueScope (BSL) flagging a need to invest in decarbonisation.

The equity market continued to grind higher in August despite the challenge posed by the Delta spread.

Paradoxically, we are in an environment where the constraint on growth from Delta supports markets, given that it means policy remains easier for longer.

The S&P/ASX 300 gained 2.61% for the month. The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries was up 4.98% and S&P/ASX 300 A-REIT index gained 6.38%. Financials finished up 4.92%.

The S&P/ASX 300 Resources index dropped 8.37%. This was driven in part by falling commodity prices and was exacerbated by BHP’s proposal to collapse the company’s dual listing. Operationally, results were generally fine within the sector.

We saw a rotation to growth and some of the more richly-valued defensive stocks during the month. This was driven largely by the expectation that rates would remain lower for longer, supporting valuations in these parts of the market.

Technology (+16.2%) led the market on the back of the rotation to growth, though results in the sector were not as strong as the price action might imply.

Register for Crispin’s bi-annual Beyond The Numbers live webinar tomorrow (Tue Sep 7)

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About Crispin Murray and Pendal Focus Australian Share Fund

Crispin Murray is Pendal’s Head of Equities. He has more than 27 years of investment experience and leads one of the largest equities teams in Australia. Crispin’s Pendal Focus Australian Share Fund has beaten the benchmark in 12 years of its 16-year history (after fees), across a range of market conditions.

Pendal is an independent, global investment management business focused on delivering superior investment returns for our clients through active management. 

Find out more about Pendal Focus Australian Share Fund here.  

Contact a Pendal key account manager here.

Drawing on over 24 years’ experience investing in top-performing Australian companies and a background in accounting, Jim manages our Long/ Short Fund and manages our Imputation Fund. He previously managed a number of funds for Colonial First State. Prior to this he worked at Arthur Andersen in a variety of audit, advisory and corporate finance roles. Jim holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics (Accounting and Finance). He is a Chartered Accountant with membership of the Australian Institute of Chartered Accountants.