The Consilium-run funds management brand, Evidential, has pulled in well over $400 million soon after launch for its new value-tilted global small-to-mid cap equities vehicle.
Officially live early in April, the Evidential Sustainable Targeted Factor Fund will end this week with $420 million under management, largely reallocated by financial advisers from similar international share strategies housed in Australian unit trusts.
Damon O’Brien, Consilium head of investments, said the launch was timed to coincide with the start of the tax year, facilitating a transfer from offshore-domiciled funds to the new portfolio investment entity (PIE) product.
“The vast majority [of money flowing into the Evidential fund] is coming from Australian unit trusts,” O’Brien said, “which is why the timing around the tax year was important.”
He said the just-launched Evidential funds gives investors access to a unique (in NZ, at least) factor-based global equities style targeting small-to-medium companies with Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) as underlying manager.
Under the mandate, DFA invest in “a diversified portfolio of small and medium capitalisation companies associated with global developed markets (excluding Australia and New Zealand), with an emphasis on companies that are expected to have higher returns”, according to Evidential disclosure documents.
In practice, O’Brien said the fund holds up to 3,500 stocks out of a global universe of about 5,000 with the DFA sustainable overlay excluding roughly 20 per cent of companies in the index.
He said DFA runs similar, but not identical, small-to-medium stock funds in other jurisdictions, notably the US.
The Evidential strategy differs from the broader DFA Global Sustainability Fund, which was released in PIE formats in 2022, he said.
Hosted by FundRock NZ, the 2022 vintage DFA global equity PIEs are more exposed to larger companies, albeit retaining the value tinge inherent in the manager’s factor-weighted process.
Since launch in June 2022, the DFA international shares PIE strategy (available in hedged and unhedged flavours) has accrued over $500 million under management – again, much of which represents transfers from Australian unit trusts following a similar approach.
DFA also released a FundRock-hosted Australian equities PIE last October, garnering $30 million plus by the end of 2023.
In total, the newly expanded Evidential fund suite holds almost $800 million with the brand’s sustainable global bonds fund, also managed by DFA, reporting $370 million under management as at last week.
Consilium opened the Evidential global fixed income PIE fund in May 2022, its first foray into funds management.
O’Brien said Consilium has no immediate plans to launch other Evidential funds.
The new global shares PIE fund boasts an annual management fee of 0.62 per cent with Apex providing custody and administration and Trustees Executors as supervisor.
At launch, the Evidential international equities PIE was available exclusively on the Consilium wrap but would join other platforms over the next month as per the bond fund that is listed on Apex (ex MMC/Aegis), NZX Wealth Technologies and Adminis.