AMP Capital Investors leverages its experience

Experience and consistency are the two key factors that have enabled AMP Capital to top the list of global property securities at a time when it looked like many stocks in the fund’s investment universe would not survive.

The AMP Capital Global Property Securities Fund owes its market position to its quality senior management team, according to AMP Capital’s senior investment specialist for listed property securities, Trevor Cooke.

“AMP was the first to launch a global real estate strategy in Australia and the team that was brought together then is still there today, we’ve just added to it. We now have 25 investment professionals, making us one of the largest teams in the world providing this service,” Cooke said.

The fund was commended for its strong performance over the 2009 calendar year in which it outperformed its benchmark, the UBS Global Real Estate Investors Index, by 8.4 per cent.

The $1.7 billion fund currently includes around 80 stocks, 50 per cent of which are allocated to stocks in North America, while about 20 per cent each is allocated to European and Asian stocks.

The fund’s investment style combines a top-down macroeconomic approach to regional and country allocation with a bottom-up stock specific selection process.

“As active managers we seek out value through fundamental research. Our stock selection [is carried out at] a regional level by each of the property securities teams in Sydney, Hong Kong, London and Chicago,” Cooke said.

“Our team’s core function is scouring the world to find the best value. We think we do that better than anyone else and our track record supports that,” he added.

The recent switch of controlling body from AMP Capital Investors to AMP Capital Brookfield is also expected to improve its global research capability and lead to greater accountability.

The finalists in this category were ING W/S Global Property Securities Fund and EII Global Property Fund, which is distributed by Macquarie Investment Management.

The head of distribution at Macquarie Global Investments, Adrian Stewart, said he was delighted by the performance of the European Investors Inc fund, which is part of Macquarie’s Professional Series.

Stewart believes the success of the fund “comes back to the fact that they have a very well resourced and stable investment team, and their geographic reach ensures that their research process is robust”.

The boutique firm is privately owned by the members of the team, which ensures that the interests of the owners of the business are aligned with those of investors, Stewart said.

He also attributed the success of the fund to its concentrated portfolio and benchmark unaware investment strategy, which allows it to focus on quality and value in absolute terms when selecting stocks.

ING Clarion Real Estate Securities chief investment officer Ritson Ferguson said their fund is characterised by the experience of its investment team, its global research footprint and its extraordinarily low personnel turnover.

The team consists of 27 members, with a structure that combines the benefits of both a decentralised regional structure with a centralised global portfolio management approach.

“We are pleased that the fund, over this time period of extreme market volatility, delivered investors one of the strongest returns with less volatility when compared to its peers,” Ferguson said.