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Maritime appoints Avoca after Kosmos closure
by Brendan Swift
The $4 billion-plus Maritime Super has appointed Avoca Investment Management to oversee a small-cap mandate after the closure of Kosmos Asset Management earlier this year.
Maritime first awarded a small caps mandate to Kosmos in 2009-10 however, the closure of the funds management firm this year forced the super fund to appoint a new manager.
“We would have stayed with them – they were doing a fantastic job but that’s life,” Maritime Super chief executive Peter Robertson said.
Kosmos was founded by former Colonial First State portfolio managers Tom Plodr and Anthony Vourdanos. Its other superannuation investors included Cbus and Auscoal.
Maritime’s small-cap investment has now been transferred from Kosmos to the Bennelong Avoca Emerging Leaders Fund, managed by John Campbell and Jeremy Bendeich. The fund underperformed the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Accumulation index in the year to June 30 by 6.45 per cent but outperformed by 6.17 per cent over the two-year period according to its website.
A number of small cap managers have returned money to investors in recent times rather than manage an overly large fund, which can hamper performance.
Paradice Investment Management recently handed back about $800 million to investors from its previous $1.8 billion small caps fund. Pengana’s small cap fund has also made a number of special distributions to reduce the size of its fund.
