Salt Funds Management has opened up its Core NZ Shares product to the wider market.
While Salt set the Core product up in September this year, the fund officially kicked off only last week after securing a $20 million plus wholesale mandate to seed the offer.
According to the Salt website, the fund starts independent living with $22 million under management.
The Core NZ Shares strategy aims “to outperform the S&P/NZX 50 Gross Index on a rolling three-year basis by investing predominantly in New Zealand shares but with the ability to invest opportunistically in Australian shares”, the fund disclosure document says.
Founded by former BT Funds portfolio managers Paul Harrison and Matthew Goodson in 2013, Salt scored a $690 million NZ equities mandate from AMP Capital NZ in 2015 when the latter manager disbanded its in-house active local shares team. Salt also runs a large NZ shares mandate for Westpac/BT NZ.
The latest (Salt-based) AMP Capital NZ Shares Fund update reports funds under management of about $512 million.
Salt has not launched an unlisted fund since 2015 when it rolled out the NZ Dividend Appreciation Fund. Including the new Core fund, Salt now has four unlisted products open to retail and wholesale investors.
Late in 2018, the Auckland boutique also launched the innovative NZX-listed Carbon Fund, which trades in carbon credits. As at the end of September, the Salt Carbon Fund was valued at about $7.8 million.
In November this year Salt also hired outgoing AMP Capital NZ chief, Bevan Graham, as economist. Another AMP Capital alumni, ex head of sales, Greg McMaster, joined Salt in September as head of client partnerships.
The new Core fund features a total annual fund cost of 1.17 per cent, including a 0.97 per cent management fee.
Overall, Salt manages more than $2 billion on behalf of institutional, wholesale and retail investors.