Sydney-based Apostle Funds is bringing a new actively managed ETF onto the ASX.
The Apostle Dundas Global Equity Fund is managed by a Scottish team in Dundas. The fund is currently available as an open-ended mutual fund, which has outperformed the past five years. But Apostle thought to list an ETF as well in attempt to bring the fund to a wider audience.
According to Karyn West, boss of Apostle (pictured), the ETF launch enables the fund to get access to more brokers and advisers.
She said: “It is a more simple process for clients to access the product. It is the way forward. They can go through our [mutual fund] and there are IFAs that choose to do that route. But the ETF model has a wider audience.”
The fund’s investment strategy aims to chart a middle path between buying growth stocks and buying dividend payers. Apostle chose the dividend strategy because it appeals to retirees – which is where the guts of the money is in wealth management. And chose the moderate growth strategy as well because it appeals to late-stage accumulators, such as investors aged 40-60 years old.
“The key thing is in retirement you can’t really sustain big drawdowns,” West said.
“[We are] looking for products that suit both the accumulation and retirement phase. It’s not a [fund for the] high growth phase, nor a high yield that would suit more retirees. It pegs the middle.”
To this end, the portfolio managers at Dundas look for stocks with growing earnings but also paying sustainable dividends.
Among their biggest picks is Taiwan Semiconductor, the Taipei-based semiconductor foundry. Explaining their pick, Dundas said that the company was benefiting from “outsourcing of chip manufacture by chip designers, while also providing technology leadership in the continuation of chip miniaturization.”
Another pick is Keyence, the Japanese company that makes sensors and lasers used in robotics. Keyence has benefitted from companies using robots more in their factories and warehouses. Dundas said that they like its strong balance sheet and heavily research spending.
The ETF, which began trading on the ASX yesterday, charges 0.90%.
