Investors keep one eye on active management
As investors look to diversify their portfolios, Certitude Global Investment chief executive Craig Mowll says he has seen renewed interest in fund managers taking an active approach to investing.
Mowll said more investors were steering clear of indexes and expressing a desire to invest in alternative funds, global equities and credit.
"I think a lot of investors missed out on a lot in the first six months [in terms of] genuine performance," he said.
"People are starting to realise that if they don't start making some adjustments to their portfolios, they're going to continue to miss out on those opportunities."
For Hunter Hall Investments executive director Peter Hall, the desire for active managers is not strong - and he said he firmly believes that retail investors are still concerned about protecting their wealth.
In relation to its 30 per cent holding in Australian-based medical device company Sirtex Medical, Hall said it had sometimes been the case that Hunter Hall had to defend this particular investment to its own investors.
However, it was important to be a "real investor" by helping businesses to develop, not simply buying and selling around an index-related basket of stocks, he said.
A truly active fund manager needed to ask whether a particular company needed more capital, a stronger management or a better business strategy in order to produce superior returns going forward, he said.
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