The latest Zenith international equities sector review has shown fund managers in the sector operating in Australia are competing well with those managers who are domiciled overseas.
The research house's review saw seven funds receive a highly recommended rating and a further 23 funds awarded a recommended rating.
In addition to the 30 funds that received a recommended rating or better 12 were being run by Australian domiciled managers, with 16 being operated by managers based overseas. The remaining two funds were run by teams that were split across Sydney and London.
Specifically funds that were highly recommended in the International Global Unhedged category included the Acadian Wholesale Global Equity Fund, the BT Wholesale Core Global Share Fund, and the Morgan Stanley Global Franchise Fund.
Similarly, the Acadian Wholesale Global Long / Short Fund, the Colonial First State Wholesale Global Resources Fund, the Platinum International Brands Fund, and the Platinum International Fund all received highly recommended ratings in the International Equities Specialist category.
Other trends uncovered by the review included the increasing use of non-benchmark aware strategies toward portfolio construction among managers.
Qualitative managers were also discovered to be, in general, holding a fewer number of concentrated stocks compared to quantitative managers who tended to have a broader stock holding.
The treatment of emerging markets was also found to have changed among international equities managers with stocks from these economies now being included as a mainstream component of portfolios rather than being treated as a separate asset class completely.
