Australian Eagle Trust Long-Short Fund has been upgraded to a Recommended rating from Zenith. Across the period from the 1/7/2016 to the 31/5/21 the Australian Eagle Trust Long-Short Fund returned 18.32% pa, with a beta of 0.84.

Across the full period Australian Eagle returned the second best returns from amongst 21 competitors and outperformed the median manager by 7.59% pa.

Sean Sequeira, the Australian Eagle CIO said “We are pleased that Zenith have recognised the continued performance of the long/short fund, and our team. A lot of things have come together to deliver a superior outcome for our investors; but there must be a bedrock. For us, our bedrock is a focus on what is changing on a stock by stock basis. This permeates our thinking, our portfolio and every aspect of our implementation from risk control to investment horizon.  Fundamentally, we believe that early changes in companies are often unrecognised or under recognised for a variety of institutional reasons and it is identifying this nascent change that underpins our superior outcome for our clients.

Zenith commented that the fund has ‘demonstrated an ability to preserve capital in drawdown periods relative to the benchmark’ being the S&P/ASX100 index and has also demonstrated an ability to ‘outperform in both up and down moves more than 50% of the time.’  Overall, Zenith comments that on a risk adjusted basis investors were compensated for the active risk in the fund.

Alan Kwan Senior Portfolio Manager and Director of Australian Eagle said “We are pleased that the Zenith team recognised that our clients have been rewarded for the active risk that we have taken on their behalf. One reason for this success is that capturing fundamental change means that you have to have an investment horizon that is out beyond the normal short-term investment scrum. Company changes can be like an oil tanker that can need a lot of time and sea room to change direction. We believe that our culture, boutique structure and investment thesis for change means that we can provide that ‘sea room’, but with vigilance!”