“The Pengana Global Small Companies Fund will invest worldwide, focusing on global stocks capitalised under $US10billion, with a median market cap expected to be less than $US3billion. The mandate will be for 30-80 stocks as we believe that a concentrated fund will outperform given the quality of smaller company stocks available globally,” said Russel Pillemer, CEO, Pengana Capital.
“We have been keen to launch a global offering in this space and have sought a funds management team that has the ability to generate strong outperformance. We have confidence that Leah Zell and her team at Lizard, with their excellent track record, will generate such returns.
“Lizard’s value-oriented investment style is akin to our local Pengana Emerging Companies Fund, which also seeks to identify businesses through in house fundamental research that are overlooked and mispriced,” said Mr Pillemer.
Leah Zell is considered to be one of the foremost global small cap fund managers in the US and a pioneer in global small cap investing. Prior to establishing Lizard Investors in 2008, Ms Zell was a Co-Foundering Partner and Portfolio Manager at Wanger Asset Management where she was Head of the International Equities Team and Lead Portfolio Manager of the Acorn International Fund.
She formed Lizard Investors in 2008 and since then, its flagship fund has produced returns of 12.31% per annum with 8.12% standard deviation against an 18.26% standard deviation for the MSCI ACWI ex US (the Fund’s benchmark).
“Global small caps are currently one of the few places that are expected to show strong growth over the coming years. However, even though local demand for international shares has been increasing, not much of this has gone into specialized small cap funds, in part due to the lack of high quality global small cap investment options,” said Mr Pillemer.
Media Contact:
Russel Pillemer
Chief Executive Officer
Pengana Capital
(02) 8524-9932 0412 501 842
russel.pillemer@pengana.com