Tyndall leads way as value clean sweeps growth

THERoyal & SunAlliance-ownedTyndall Investment Managementgroup has cast aside the uncertainty pervading the world’s equity markets to top consulting groupInTech Financial Services’list of Australian share managers for calendar year 2002.

In a year dominated by value managers, Tyndall returned 6.9 per cent for the year to take out the number one position narrowly ahead of another value manager, Dimensional, which had a strong month in December to return 6.1 per cent for the year.

They were followed by a range of other managers with strong value biases, includingInvestors Mutual(4.2 per cent), Lazard (3.2 per cent) andPerennial Value(2.3 per cent).

Aberdeenwas the best performing non-value style manager for the year, finishing in ninth position after returning negative 0.3 per cent.

According to InTech, Tyndall’s top ranking performance was aided by an overweight bias to mid-cap and mining stocks, as well as its value investment style.

The result came in a year when the overwhelming dominance of value managers over their growth counterparts was unyielding, with the Macquarie Australian Shares Value Index returning negative two per cent, while the Macquarie Australian Shares Growth Index returned a relatively poor negative 15 per cent.

“True to their typical boast, value managers revelled in the bear market conditions, occupying the top eight rungs in the 50 strong manager universe, with the first seven being the only Australian shares managers to deliver positive returns for the calendar year,” InTech senior consultant Andrew Korbel says.

It was a similar story in the international share category, where value managers dominated the list of Intech’s top performing managers in another disastrous year for the world’s equity markets.

The top performing international share manager,Marathon, returned a meagre negative 13.6 per cent for the year, a relatively positive result when compared to the average manager in the sector, which returned negative 25.9 per cent.

Marathon was followed by Acadian (-15.4 per cent), Bernstein Global Value (-18.8 per cent) andGMO(-18.8 per cent).

“This year no managers got close to delivering a positive return, with the best-performing manager, Marathon, returning negative 13.6 per cent. However, this meant investors in this fund only suffered half the capital loss of a passive investor in this sector, making it a very strong relative result,” Korbel says.