Boutique investment manager launches in Aussie market



TWC Investment Management has commenced operations, initially offering three funds to wholesale investors and led by a former Credit Suisse managing director.
The boutique investment manager confirmed on 24 September that it has launched in the Australian market, led and founded by CIO John Birkhold and CEO Owen Hereford.
Birkhold was previously a portfolio manager at Origin Asset Management for 12 years. Prior to this, he held the managing director role at Credit Suisse HOLT, a platform that enables investors to compare and value companies across the globe.
Hereford’s career includes five years spent at NAB as an independent consultant, eight years at Goldman Sachs in executive director roles, and seven years at Citi.
TWC Investment Management, which has operations in both Sydney and Melbourne, will initially offer three funds to wholesale and institutional investors: the Global Wealth Creators, Select Global Wealth Creators and Emerging Wealth Creators funds.
These funds are based on its proprietary investment framework that diverges from conventional accounting-based market norms and is underpinned by a real return on investment measure of performance.
It will evaluate publicly listed companies and management teams through an industrial lifecycle lens, anticipating prospective economic return generation in line with consistent corporate performance drivers.
“The goal is to break away from conventional metrics, like EPS growth and price-to-earnings ratios, and instead focus on economic measures of corporate performance and embedded expectations in order to create, not diminish, the wealth of our clients,” said Birkhold.
“Our proprietary framework, which has been refined over the past 30 years, is adept at identifying listed company wealth creators, run by exceptional management teams, across the entire industrial lifecycle spectrum.”
Hereford commented that the firm is focused on setting a new standard in Australian funds management, with an emphasis on transparency and clarity of purpose.
“We have the opportunity to generate lasting value for our clients by sharing key insights so that they can navigate financial markets and allocate capital in a more rational manner in order to achieve their long-term financial objectives,” he explained.
In addition to Hereford and Birkhold, TWC’s founding partners include Neil Carter, Cameron Sinclair, Amy Reed and Angelique Tan.
Hereford continued: “Wealth generation that is rooted in a strategic-based framework that has been designed with clarity, precision and knowledge will empower our investors to deploy capital with the confidence of context.”
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