It is understood Fisher Funds has hired senior research analyst with low-profile NZ-based hedge fund Trafalgar Copley, Robbie Urquhart, as head of Australian equities.
According to industry sources, Urquhart will replace Manuel Greenland, who resigned Fisher last year to take up a position with a new investment business operated by the Graeme Hart-owned Rank Group.
A spokesperson for the $7 billion plus Fisher Funds confirmed the Australian equities role had been filled with the yet-to-be officially named successful applicant due to start in about three months.
Urquhart is one of three senior investment staff at Trafalgar Copley, the long/short hedge fund founded in 2007 by former First NZ Capital managing director, David Copley. Copley remains a non-executive director for the rebranded FNZC.
The Trafalgar Copley fund, a partnership with UK-based hedge fund Trafalgar Capital, reported funds under management of just over $7 million as at the end of 2016, according to accounts filed this January, down from about $15.3 million the previous year.
Trafalgar is the portfolio manager for the NZ fund, which, along with two other offshore-based Trafalgar Copley entities, feeds into an Australian dollar-denominated, Caymans Island-domiciled master fund.
“The [AU$32 million] Trafalgar Copley Master Fund returned -48.6% (AU$ class) for the [2016] calendar year which compares to +7% for the ASX200 Index and +5.8% for the NZ Portfolio Index for the year,” the Trafalgar Copley report says. “This was a disappointing year for the fund.”
During 2016 the fund was hit by “broad based short squeezes” that saw the manager dial back “gross exposure”, the report says.
“Entering 2017, we are cautiously optimistic that the headwinds of ultra-loose monetary (and to an extent fiscal) policy settings facing fundamental based fund managers for the past few years is starting to abate,” the report says. “With interest rates starting to rise, if central bank involvement in financial markets can continue to gradually recede, and the dispersion of risk pricing of assets starts to rise, this should present us with some interesting investment opportunities, long and short during the year.”
The Trafalgar Copley Master Fund reported net assets of AU$32.4 as at December 31, 2016, compared to $AU88.7 million 12 months previously.