The fund was previously rated highly recommended, but has been put back one notch to recommended after the relaunch of the fund as the Ironbark Karara Australian Small Companies Fund.
Karara Capital in April entered into a joint venture with its distributor, Ironbark Asset Management, to buy Patriot Asset Management.
As a result of the acquisition, former Patriot small companies portfolio manager Nick Greenway has joined Karara as a co-portfolio manager for small companies, alongside portfolio manager David Slack and investment analyst Peter Kormendy.
"Karara's investment style has no discernable growth or value bias, as opposed to Patriot's strategy, which had a value bias," Zenith investment analyst Graeme Miller said.
"There are, however, strong similarities - for example, both approaches have an emphasis on assessing earnings quality and typically avoid pure resource exploration companies."
Cash levels are likely to be closer to fully invested than under Patriot's structure.
Karara is limited to 10 per cent, while historically Patriot's cash level was as high as 20 per cent.
