Page 171 - Profiles's Unit Trusts & Collective Investments - September 2024

Fund Manager Interviews

mispriced, as is the JSE. So, any correction (triggered possibly by the US economy growing at a
higher rate than expected) should be fairly short and hurt the expensive tech shares most.

Could you identify three shares that fall within your universe that you think will perform well
in the medium term?
South Africa: Nedgroup, Absa and OUTsurance.
Globally: US Bancorp, HSBC and Bawag.

Perspective Balanced Prescient Fund
Sector: South African–Multi Asset–High Equity
Portfolio managers: Daniel Malan & Mikael Liefferink
Benchmark: CPI+5%

Returns to investors 1 year 3 years
Perspective Balanced Prescient Fund 11.75% 11.79%
Sector Average 10.33% 9.21%
Inflation (CPI) 5.10% 5.96%
ProfileData performance stats to 30 June 2024: CAGR with dividends reinvested
Please describe your investment universe.
Perspective is fully aligned with all of our fund investors, who are, similar to us,
entrepreneurial and long-term in their mind set and actions. As a result, our investment universe
is deliberately as wide as possible with no constraints. This enables us to focus on researching and
investing in any of the countries, asset classes, and industries in the world that happen to provide
the best long-term investment opportunities that we judge to meet our core investment criteria at
a point in time.

Please comment on your investment year (July 2023 – June 2024) from a fund manager’s
point of view.
This was another memorable year in the markets, with the rapid fire return of momentum
investing in spades and the emergence of the so-called “Magnificent 7”, the moniker used to
describe the 7 largest market cap stocks busy leading the world market indices ever higher, and
now being nearly 30% of the S&P500. This increased market concentration level is typical of
historical late bull market phases, which is something that we are mindful of as our team works on
and thinks about our individual holdings and overall fund positioning in terms of risks and
opportunities. We are also mindful of heightened geopolitical tensions and key elections in many
countries, including South Africa.
In terms of risk management, what methods or strategies are you able to use to protect your
clients’ investments?
This flexible mandate empowers us to optimally balance risks with opportunities. At
Perspective our main risk management strategies include:(a) being disciplined about only owning
quality businesses, with strong balance sheet positions as well as proven competent, trustworthy
leadership, and acquired at cheap absolute valuations for our funds, (b) asset class, sector, industry
and individual holding exposures and sensible diversification, as well as (c) a holistic fund-level
understanding of risk management in respect of correlations between individual holdings. Within
reason and mandate, we are (d) able to occasionally deploy low-cost derivative strategies to
mitigate against specific risks that we identify from time to time.

Please comment on the year ahead and, if possible, estimate the performance of your fund
over 2 or 3 years. What are your targets and objectives for the year ahead?
We do not engage in any forecasting. It does not work, and we are not prepared to pretend
otherwise and mislead others and ourselves. What we do know, with a very high degree of

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