Equity Trustees and BNP Paribas have announced the appointment of Australian equity boutique JCP Investment Partners to manage the Arnhem Australian Equity fund.
The announcement comes after the news on 4 June 2018 that Arnhem Investment Management would be winding down its Australian and investment management business.
Equity Trustees is the responsible entity of the Arnhem Australian Equity fund, and BNP Paribas (which owns 40 per cent of Arnhem) is responsible for administration and distribution of the fund.
Commenting on the appointment of JCP to manage Arnhem’s flagship Australian equities product, Morningstar maintained its ‘under review’ rating and said it would determine whether it would maintain coverage of the fund “in the coming weeks”.
“JCP is a fundamental, active Australian Equity manager founded in 1998. It will manage this fund according to its benchmark insensitive strategy which has a track record back to 2004, and to date has been available to institutional investors only,” said Morningstar.
“The strategy follows a growth investment style with a compact 30–40 stock portfolio, similar to the incumbent Arnhem strategy,” said the analyst note.
It is only “natural” that there will be turnover in the fund’s investment staff once JCP takes over control, said Morningstar.
“This transition will take place on Friday, 17 August. JCP is undertaking a common holdings analysis on the portfolios and will seek to minimise the impact of costs to unit holders during the transition,” said the note.
