MIR wins Russell mandate

Boutique funds management outfit MIR is quickly becoming one of the more sought after managers in the country after it was added to the investment line-up of yet another multi-manager fund.

The Russell Investment Group has given MIR a mandate to manage five per cent - approximately $185 million - of its Australian Share Fund.

It follows similar mandates from Skandia and Advance Asset Management, which hired MIR to manage 25 per cent of its Australian shares small caps fund late last year.

MIR, set up in 2003 by Lazard Asset Management Asia Pacific founder Michael Triguboff, was also one of only four Australian share managers to generate a positive return as the market took a dip in March.

“I think our investment process is achieving its potential and it has delivered performance,” Triguboff said.

“Performance over one month or two months really doesn’t matter that much. What we do in the longer term is what really matters and I think Russell are more interested in our investment process.”

While the recent downturn in Australian stocks was no cause for panic, it was a definite reflection of greater market instability, Triguboff said.

“The market is certainly more volatile than it was last year. But we don’t see a cataclysmic scenario is in the offing,” he said.

“But it is certainly more volatile and indiscriminate than it was last year; often punishing or rewarding stocks not based on fundamentals but on market sentiment.”

The $3.7 billion Russell fund is a multi style, as well as multi manager product.

The group’s director of portfolio management, Symon Parish, said MIR had been appointed to specifically manage a value component of the fund.

Other managers in the fund include Perennial, which also manages a value component, BEM, Contango, Orion, and ABN Amro.