It’s a personal thrill that Third Link Growth Fund has just passed its 10th anniversary. The Fund opened for investment on 10 April 2008, in hindsight a difficult time to launch with the global financial crisis around the corner.
With the passing of these 10 years, it’s a good time to pause, reflect and celebrate the achievements of the Fund. These include:
- The Fund has grown to $163 million at the end of March 2018, a significant achievement given there has been no sales force selling the product. It relies on word-of-mouth, the innovative charitable angle whereby all fees are donated to charity (a structure since copied successfully as well), a good performance track record and some favourable press.
- Over the 10 years since inception, the Fund has achieved a compound annual return of 9.6% after fees. During this same time period the bank bill rate has yielded 3.4% per annum.
- From February 2012, the Fund altered its objective from a multi-sector growth fund (invested in a combination of Australian shares, international shares, property and fixed interest) to one that invested only in Australian shares. Since that time, the Fund has achieved a compound annual return of 13.6% after fees compared with the S&P/ASX300 Accumulation Index increasing by 9.8% per annum. The Fund outperformed this benchmark by 3.8% per annum.
- Zenith Investment Partners, an independent research group, currently has a ‘Recommended’ rating on the Fund. Furthermore, the Australian financial data provider, FE, and Money Management have recently launched the FE Crown Fund ratings in Australia (a quantitative measure of performance, consistency and volatility) and Third Link Growth Fund has received the maximum score of 5 crowns. The Fund sits within the top 10% of its peer group.
- Since inception, over $7,500,000 has been donated to charities (all listed on the Fund’s web site, and which include Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME), National Centre for Childhood Grief, The Song Room, batyr, Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, Dismantle, SHINE for Kids, BackTrack, Mirabel Foundation, Raise Foundation and Children’s Ground) from the fees received in managing the Fund. Donations are now running at around $175,000 every month!
Of course, none of this could have been achieved without the extraordinary generosity of the underlying investment managers and service providers who all provide their services on a pro bono basis. The investment managers include Aberdeen Asset Management, Bennelong Australian Equity Partners, Colonial First State Global Asset Management, Cooper Investors, Greencape Capital, Harness Asset Management, JBWere Wealth Management, L1 Capital, Lazard Asset Management Pacific Co, Lennox Capital Partners, Montgomery Investment Management, Ophir Asset Management, Paradice Investment Management, and Pengana Capital. And the service providers include Bennelong Funds Management (Responsible Entity), RBC Investor Services Trust (custodian and administrator), Minter Ellison (legal work), Deloitte (auditors of the Fund), Ernst & Young (auditors of the Manager), KPMG (tax advisers to the Fund) and Nexia Australia (tax advisers to the Manager).
Thank you to those who have supported the Third Link Growth Fund and helping make the concept a reality. The Fund closed to new investors in September 2017.
Chris Cuffe is the Founder and Portfolio Manager of Third Link Growth Fund. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. This information provided is general and does not constitute personal financial, tax or legal advice.