In a statement released yesterday, UBS said the fund will provide investors access to an actively managed, core-style, diversified portfolio of microcap securities which will be managed by its small companies team.
“Microcaps represent a vast and dynamic investment opportunity and companies in this sector tend to be under-researched and overlooked by other investors,” UBS Microcap fund portfolio manager Joel Fleming said.
“This provides an invaluable opportunity to invest in the businesses today that have the potential to become the household names of the future,” Mr Fleming said.
UBS said the fund’s target capacity of $150 million will remain “uniquely small” to suitably “exploit the opportunities” in the microcap investment universe.
“The fund aims to provide investors with a return (after management costs) in excess of the benchmark when measured over rolling five-year periods,” a statement from UBS said.
“It is best suited to investors who seek a well-diversified portfolio of small capitalisation securities with an investment horizon of at least five years,” it said.
UBS also said that since inception, the microcap client mandate – managed by the small cap team – has delivered an annualised return of 26.97 per cent versus the S&P/ASX small ordinaries accumulation bench mark of 4.93 per cent.
“A number of the positions that drove this performance were stocks that 18 months ago were trading at substantially lower levels, (most cases sub $250 million), and in many cases are now part of the S&P small ordinaries accumulation index,” a statement from UBS said.
