Boutique fund manager Bennelong Funds Management has announced Herschel Asset Management’s Mark Burgess and Kristiaan Rehder will join the firm to manage an Australian equity long short absolute return fund.
Bennelong chief executive Jarrod Brown confirmed the pair will join Bennelong on 1 September 2011 to form a yet-to-be-named investment business of which they will be the majority shareholders.
“They have tremendous past performance, a robust investment process and are very highly regarded in the absolute return space,” Brown said.
Earlier in the year, research house Zenith gave the Herschel Absolute Return Fund a ‘recommended’ rating for its unblemished record of outperformance in a falling market, labelling it the “undiscovered gem” of hedge funds.
This is the second boutique Bennelong has brought on board in three months, with two former UBS small cap asset managers joining the firm in May to form Avoca Investment Partners.
Super funds had a “tremendous month” in November, according to new data.
Australia faces a decade of deficits, with the sum of deficits over the next four years expected to overshoot forecasts by $21.8 billion.
APRA has raised an alarm about gaps in how superannuation trustees are managing the risks associated with unlisted assets, after releasing the findings of its latest review.
Compared to how funds were allocated to March this year, industry super funds have slightly decreased their allocation to infrastructure in the six months to September – dropping from 11 per cent to 10.6 per cent, according to the latest APRA data.