Third Link seeks to harness the brightest and best fund managers it can find, based on Chris Cuffe’s own extensive knowledge of the industry and feedback from various investment professionals. When selecting fund managers, their method of managing money, experience, correlation issues and past performance under different conditions are key drivers in deciding which fund managers to use.
You should also note the following:
- We are not obliged to use any particular investment managers and it is possible that we may change managers at any time.
- The process of identifying suitable managers will always be continuous, particularly as new managers are formed or we uncover previously unknown managers.
- Although we undertake continuous monitoring of the managers/funds that the Third Link Growth Fund invests in, in the absence of changes in key personnel and management methodology, we are likely to remain invested with a particular manager/fund over the medium to long term.
- The amount of money invested with each individual manager is not the same and will depend on many factors including the overall size of the Third Link Growth Fund, style of manager, similarity with other managers, liquidity issues, etc.
- In addition to the managers/funds listed below, we may also from time to time be invested in listed invested companies.
- Listed below are the fund managers and their particular structure that Third Link Growth Fund is invested in. The description about each fund manager has been obtained from the relevant fund managers and/or is publicly available from that fund manager’s website
1851 Capital
Established in 2020, 1851 Capital is an independently-owned, specialist smaller companies investment manager based in Sydney, Australia. With over 25 years collective investment management experience, Portfolio managers Chris Stott and Martin Hickson have worked together for over a decade, previously at Wilson Asset Management.
1851 Capital invests in companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), with a focus on small-cap companies which sit outside the ASX 100. They believe the small-cap end of the market offers the greatest opportunities for capital appreciation. The manager uses a fundamental bottom up approach to stock selection predominately investing in growth companies, with a value overlay.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with 1851 Capital to access its smaller companies Australian equity expertise via the 1851 Emerging Companies Fund.
Auscap Asset Management
Auscap is a value-based equities manager. Auscap’s funds target attractive total return opportunities through disciplined, patient investing. Auscap aims to preserve capital and generate long-term, compounding returns. Their value-based investment approach focuses on long investments in high-quality companies that have a sustainable comparative advantage and are trading at prices significantly below their long-term intrinsic value. Auscap will seek to achieve investment returns by investing each of the Auscap funds’ capital in securities it believes will appreciate in value. Generating returns is dependent on a number of assumptions, including sufficient attractive investment opportunities, the market’s recognition of the value of these opportunities in line with Auscap’s expectations and the ability of Auscap to limit the number and impact of errors in analysis, assessment and execution of its investment strategy. Auscap will allocate capital in accordance with expected performance and risk measures.
Third Link invests with Auscap to access the Auscap Ex-20 Australian Equities Fund (Ex-20 Fund), an Australian unit trust, managed by Auscap Asset Management Limited. The Ex-20 Fund’s objective is to seek to outperform its benchmark, being the S&P/ASX300 ex S&P/ASX20 Index over the suggested minimum investment time for five years. The Ex-20 Fund provides exposure to an actively managed portfolio, made up of a broad range of listed Australian equities. The Ex-20 Fund’s portfolio comprises between 40 to 60 securities purchased primarily from the S&P/ASX 300 Index (excluding securities in the S&P/ASX 20 Index).
Cooper Investors
Cooper Investors (“CI”) is a specialist equities fund manager that commenced operations in 2001 and manage money for a range of clients including large pension and superannuation funds, religious institutions, Australian State Government agencies, school endowments, charities and high net worth families and retail clients. CI is 100% owned by its employees. Employees are encouraged to invest in the CI trusts.
CI manages a range of pooled investment trusts and a number of individual mandates which invest in Australian equities, international securities or a mixture of both.
CI focuses on facts not predictions in analysing investment opportunities while being attentive to current trends. Its managers regularly review their positions based on the fact that things are constantly changing and that what people say and do are often different. CI places equal emphasis on qualitative and quantitative features, given that beliefs and values drive customers, boards of directors and management teams. CI seeks to invest in companies that have good value propositions, with positive operational, industry and strategic trends and run by focused management teams with demonstrable competence, clarity, focus, passion & energy.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with CI for its Australian equity expertise via the CI Australian Equities Fund.
DNR Capital
DNR Capital is a boutique Australian investment manager that offers a differentiated suite of investment strategies. DNR Capital is employee-owned, the portfolio managers, staff and analysts invest alongside clients, providing strong alignment with portfolio outcomes.
Since its inception in 2001, DNR Capital’s investment philosophy has remained unchanged, being an unwavering commitment to investing in quality companies that are attractively valued and which are well placed to deliver investment returns through economic cycles. It believes in having concentrated portfolios to maximise the opportunity for outperformance.
DNR Capital has developed a proprietary “Quality Web” methodology to define quality companies as those with the following five attributes:
- Earnings strength (particularly improving return)
- Superior industry structure
- Balance sheet strength
- Strong management
- Low environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk.
DNR Capital’s assessment of a company’s quality is overlaid with a detailed valuation assessment where it seeks to exploit mispriced market inefficiencies. In addition, the portfolio construction process is influenced by a top-down economic appraisal in addition to risk factors such as security and sector correlations.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with DNR Capital for its Australian equity expertise via the DNR Capital Australian Equities High Conviction Fund.
EC Pohl & Co
ECP Asset Management (ECP) is a boutique fund manager offering investors a concentrated, benchmark unaware and growth-biased exposure to Australian equities. Founded in 2012 by Dr Manny Pohl AM and Jared Pohl, the team comprises six investment professionals with the firm being 100% staff-owned.
ECP believes that the only way to grow wealth that is resilient and sustainable is to invest money in a careful, considered and committed way – referring to this as ‘active’ investing. The underlying investment philosophy is based on the belief that the economics of a business drives long-term investment returns. High-quality, growing businesses tend to find new ways to grow, and backing management to deliver on this captures that potential through time.
The Third Link Growth Fund invests with ECP to access its Australian equity expertise via the ECP Growth Companies Fund.
Eiger Capital
Eiger Capital (Eiger) is an active boutique Australian equities investment manager specialising in small companies. Eiger was founded in 2019 by Stephen Wood, Victor Gomes and David Haddad, who previously worked together at UBS managing over $400m in small company funds. The team employs a high conviction, style-neutral approach to investing.
Eiger’s investment philosophy is based on price to intrinsic value. They believe that parts of the Australian equity market are inefficient, and consequently opportunities exist to create value through active management. This opportunity, they believe, is particularly pronounced in the less researched, small cap segment of the market, including opportunities for outperformance in resource companies. Eiger utilises a fundamental bottom-up investment process using its proprietary 6 year cashflow based valuation model. A qualitative assessment is also undertaken using its ‘9 Commandments’, a set of common sense investing rules developed over the team’s combined 70+ years of industry experience. Eiger’s investment process tends to favour quality biased companies with strong franchise factors such as growth, high returns on invested capital, founder led businesses, strong management alignment and an earnings track record.
Eiger’s principals are strongly aligned with its investors. They are majority owners of Eiger Capital and are significant investors in its underlying funds alongside clients. They do not directly invest in any Australian small companies outside of their own funds.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with Eiger for its Australian equity expertise via the Eiger Australian Small Companies Fund.
First Sentier
First Sentier Investors (formerly Colonial First State Global Asset Management) was formed in 1988 and is a global asset management group with a client base that extends across Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.
First Sentier Investors are a stand-alone asset management business and the home of investment teams FSSA Investment Managers, Igneo Infrastructure Partners, Realindex Investments and Stewart Investors. All their investment teams – whether in-house or individually branded – operate with discrete investment autonomy, according to their investment philosophies.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with First Sentier Investors via the First Sentier Premium Cash Enhanced Fund.
Greencape Capital
Greencape Capital is a boutique Australian equity investment manager founded in 2006 and is majority owned by David Pace and Matthew Ryland.
Repeatable out performance is a cornerstone of their business philosophy. In this regard their interests are highly aligned with their clients’ interests. They believe in observation rather than prediction. When assessing a company to invest in, they undertake an intensive visitation program which includes meeting with participants through the value chain, such as a company’s suppliers, customers and competitors. They then piece together the information from these sources to verify observed facts. The verification step is critical to deriving better informed and high conviction investment decisions while avoiding unproven theories and mere predictions. Their company visitation is highly targeted and is focused on efficiently collecting and verifying relevant information. Finally, capacity limits are considered a tangible competitive advantage and as such they limit the size of their funds under management in order to remain nimble in seeking outperformance for their clients.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with Greencape Capital to access its Australian equity expertise via the Greencape Capital High Conviction Fund.
Katana Asset Management
Katana Asset Management (Katana) is a Perth-based fund manager established in 2003 and run by four investment professionals who have a combined investing experience in excess of 90 years.
Katana invests exclusively in Australian equities and focuses on capital preservation. They are not limited by index weightings, sector restrictions, thematic or company size. Their sole unlisted fund, the Katana Australian Equity Fund (KAEF), is a long-only, actively managed investment fund that invests in a range of Australian listed companies. Katana focuses on generating returns through unique insights into investment ideas while striving to act in unison with the market. KAEF is comfortable to remain weighted in cash for extended periods until the right opportunities arise.
The Katana team is invested heavily alongside other investors. Senior portfolio manager Romano Sala Tenna appears regularly in the Australian Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald, LiveWire as well as a host of smaller publications.
Koda Capital
Koda Capital is an independent private wealth management firm built on complete alignment of its interests with its clients’. Koda was founded in 2014 and specialises in meeting the investment needs of individuals, families, charities, foundations and philanthropists.
Koda provides wealth advice in the areas of investment management, responsible and impact investment, family leadership, philanthropy, tax and structuring. The firm is majority staff-owned and has offices in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Koda believes in an active, endowment-style approach to investment. This involves investing through market cycles in high quality, well-diversified assets that will both grow and protect client capital.
Third Link Growth Fund invests in an index-unaware Australian growth equity strategy managed by Koda Partner, Frank Macindoe.
L1 Capital
L1 Capital is a global investment manager with offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Miami and London. The business was established in 2007 and is owned by its senior staff, led by founders Raphael Lamm and Mark Landau. It been designed to be as closely aligned with investors as possible through the founders and investment team investing significant personal wealth and a portion of all staff’s bonuses in L1 Capital Strategies. The team manages over $5 billion across long short Australian equities, international equities, activist equities, a global multi-strategy hedge strategy and U.K. residential property. The firm has established a reputation for investment excellence and contrarian, long-term investing.
The investment process is built upon detailed, fundamental, bottom-up research, combining valuation with qualitative considerations to identify attractive investment opportunities. Markets continually present opportunities to the investment team who are unemotional and long term in their assessment of business potential. Their intensive visitation schedule with a wide variety of stakeholders provide a more complete perspective on a company’s prospects.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with L1 Capital for its Australian equity expertise via the L1 Capital Catalyst Fund.
Lennox Capital Partners
Lennox Capital Partners (‘Lennox’) was founded in 2017 by James Dougherty and Liam Donohue (the major shareholders) who both previously worked at Macquarie Group where they managed the Macquarie Australian Small Company and Micro-cap funds. During their time working together, the Macquarie Australian Small Companies Fund consistently delivered top quartile returns, outperforming both the benchmark and peers.
Lennox believe their ability to avoid structurally deficient companies and accurately forecast the medium term earnings of potential investments enables them to outperform over the long term. Their active bottom-up approach to investing utilises both qualitative screening and in-depth fundamental research. Lennox’s research process involves detailed company modelling and a comprehensive company/competitor visitation program.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with Lennox for their Australian equity expertise via the Lennox Australian Small Companies Fund.
Netherfield
Netherfield Capital (Netherfield) is a boutique investment firm that focuses on a personalised approach to portfolio management and creating investment opportunities for sophisticated investors, family offices and institutions. The founder of Netherfield, Hamish Blanche, has over 25 years experience in investment markets both in Australia and UK.
Netherfield aims to produce absolute returns by actively managing a portfolio of Australian listed securities and cash. It is benchmark agnostic meaning it does not set out to track an index but targets continuous outperformance. The investment process utilises the key analytical styles of fundamental research and technical analysis whilst overlaying additional filters to find the opportunity sweet spot. The outcome is a concentrated portfolio, often between 10 – 25 stocks. They have the ability to go to 100% cash if required. Position sizes are derived after weighing conviction and risk.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with Netherfield for their Australian equity expertise via an individually managed account.
Pengana Capital
Established in 2003, Pengana Capital (Pengana) is an Australian-based diversified funds management business which is focused on delivering high quality funds management products utilising niche investment strategies to its clients. Pengana is predominantly owned by its staff and directors. National Australia Bank is a significant minority shareholder in Pengana.
Third Link Growth Fund invests with Pengana for its smaller companies Australian equity expertise via the Pengana Emerging Companies Fund. The joint fund managers – Steve Black (former fund manager of the GSJBW Emerging Leaders Fund until 2004) and Ed Prendergast (formerly with Citigroup until 2004) – each have over 30 years of experience researching and investing in small industrial companies. The Fund’s investment process revolves around conducting in-depth, bottom-up fundamental research on small industrial companies to identify mispriced securities.
