Investment partnership to offer new Aussie micro-cap opportunity

Funds management platform provider, Mantis Funds, has added Sydney-based Balmoral Investors to its suite of boutique investment partners and launched a new micro-cap solution for Australian investors.

The Balmoral Investors Micro Cap Fund offers a diversified portfolio with exposure to quality micro-cap companies specifically with a market capitalisation under $750 million.

The fund also leverages the wealth of experience brought by its two founders and senior portfolio managers, Tim Canham and Wik Farwerck, who bring a successful track record of bottom-up micro-cap investing at Colonial First State Global Asset Management and First Sentier Investors.

“There is strong and growing interest from private clients and their advisors in quality micro-cap investments managed by seasoned investors. However, accessing experienced portfolio managers with capacity is very challenging. We are privileged to have reconnected with our old friends and colleagues, Tim Canham and Wik Farwerck, to bring their capability to our clients,” Damien Hatfield, Partner and Head of Distribution at Mantis Funds, said.

“Tim and Wik have outstanding track records in the micro-cap universe and we are excited to see how they blossom in their new (wholly investment owned) guise.”

Balmoral Investors becomes the sixteenth boutique partner of Mantis Funds, adding to the existing $50 billion in funds under management (FUM) across a variety of actively managed strategies and asset classes.

Canham and Farwerck have together managed over $1 billion in FUM for more than 15 years, outperforming the relevant benchmark by 8.3 per cent per annum over the same period.

“We are delighted to be able to offer a new capability in micro-cap investing, albeit with two experienced portfolios managers at Balmoral Investors. For too long micro caps have been seen as simply an addendum to small cap investing. We disagree with that and believe it is a very different skill set given the size, liquidity and capital constraints micro-cap companies face. We see this part of the market as very under-researched and below the radar of the passive investor cohort. Valuations are as attractive as I have seen across my career,” Tim Canham, portfolio manager at Balmoral Investors, said.

“After managing one of the largest micro-cap products in the market at circa $500 million for over 15 years, with a strong record of alpha generation, we are very well equipped to invest in this space. By concentrating on a specific part of the share market, namely stocks with a market cap below $750 million, we can focus our research and stock picking expertise.

“Our ability to maintain continuity with our previous portfolio construction methods, detailed financial modelling and investment process has given Balmoral a fast start to creating a new investment house” Wik Farwerck, portfolio manager at Balmoral Investors, said.