Navigation Opportunity in Current Global Equities Markets

Up next, we have Nick Chant and Jared Stewart, founders and portfolio managers at Sharpbridge Funds Management.

Sharpbridge is a long-only fund manager focused on generating outperformance relative to the Miski World Index in Australian dollars.

Today, they will explore how global equity markets can offer diversified growth opportunities and resilience amid shifting economic cycles.

Over to you, Nick and Jared.

Thanks, Darren.

So introducing this Sharpbridge Global Equities Fund.

Just got a short disclaimer here for everyone.

And on to the next slide.

Well, thank you, Jared.

So just a bit about myself to kick off, then we'll move on to Jared, the Portfolio Manager here at Sharpbridge, along with our Chief Financial Officer.

So I'm responsible for undertaking the daily due diligence portfolio management.

I've started life as a Bachelor of Commerce at Griffith University, then moved into a rich career of treasury in the derivatives market and foreign exchange market.

Back to you, Jared.

Thanks, Zeke.

So I'm also a portfolio manager and managing director of the business.

So my background, I've studied economics and commerce, as well as majors in applied finance, previously at Suncorp and Colonial.

And just moving on to our investment philosophy, one of the key parts of our research.

So we really undertake our proprietary research here, and we're really seeking

to change the valuation.

Our key research is bottom-up fundamental research with an overlay focused on the top-down and macroeconomics.

With a strong focus on fundamental research, we focus on valuation, business quality and future business catalysts.

So just a bit on our investment philosophy.

So a couple of the eight main points we look at when qualifying a company, whether it's an investment grade for us, first one being director ownership, are we buying along with management that has skin in the game?

Are we investing alongside them?

A bit on organizational structure as well.

So we have people that know what they're doing in the company, you know, whether they have experience in like fields,

market coverage to analyst coverage is another interesting point we touch on as well.

So a great example is a company like Tesla, where everyone's really excited about it, we've got a lot of analysts looking at it, we tend to look at something that's a bit more under research in the market.

That's not as, you know, popular at the stock, so to speak.

You know, the capital

we have the right levels of debt in a company.

As Jared touched on before, a market catalyst was something that is going to drive or unlock that valuation and see the shares crystallize in value.

Price is a great factor for us.

Are we getting a good deal?

VIX timing is also another one.

Are we buying at a time in the market where it's on risk, high text play, or are we going conservative in a REIT space where the market's

trimming to the conservative factor.

Now, we also do have an X factor in our proprietary research method.

So hence why the portfolio is run as a bit of a black box, but we're more than happy to speak to the types of companies that we do invest in and just to delve into a couple of those ones.

So what another thing we're looking for is companies in the 1 billion plus US range.

We do have as well a long term hold period for these companies.

You know, we do like to make plays where

We're looking at, you know, holding a company for three years, and this is just, you know, a conviction level, a tax strategy as well.

We don't believe in having an end aid to a 10% max committed cash position in our portfolio.

So being long, only 90%, 100% in global equities.

We aim to hold about 15 to 30 stocks in that.

And once again, no hedging, no derivatives, no short selling or leverage.

And moving on to our couple of stock examples, Nick.

Fantastic.

Thanks, Jared.

So stock example number one, this is a really exciting one.

It's actually been a contract that government US government contractor on Trump's one of the projects being the gold and Trump's golden day.

So defence and missile defence better 9 billion US market cap account, right?

It's just actually experienced earnings upgrade has that low analyst coverage, mass increase with

spending and our current return on this one since purchase about six months ago is 29.46% and it does experience that X factor.

Moving on to example number two, so this is

US Fed cuts.

So it has a 4.9 billion market cap, price to earnings ratio 15 times and it's got really strong revenue growth on this one.

Low analyst coverage once again and a really high director ownership with insight buying.

Low debt levels, particularly good for a construction company.

Increased demand once again with

netted us 43.24% since we've purchased this one.

Thanks, Jared.

Moving on to example three.

So this is a bit of an AI play.

So it's a data storage company supplying the likes of Sony, Apple, Dell.

It's had a massive spike in direct buying in the last couple of months.

It's 12 billion U.S. market cap and growing.

It's unbelievably cheap at this point in time with 12 times PE with significant revenue growth.

Once again, extremely low average.

There's about three analysts on this one, is there, Jared?

Yeah, what we really like to see is those companies that are growing quickly, that are trading at a reasonable valuation.

So some might refer to that as Gart model.

And then we're also looking for holes and managing risk in terms of the debt, analyst coverage and other aspects.

Which once again, this one has incredibly low debt levels.

and has returned us a staggering 78.49% return since purchase.

Once again, we do have that X factor on this one.

And moving to returns, Nick?

So moving to returns, so the fund has started life in April.

during a very tumultuous, turbulent time with the implement of some US Trump trade tariffs.

However, we were able to trade around those quite well, yielding our first month return of 7.79%, which our performance of the Miski of 9.54.

So over the period since we have started the fund, we have returned a cumulative return

7.07% and that's actually net of fees.

Our performance against the Miski net of fees as well is a staggering 24.64% so I think we've done pretty well for ourself and very proud of that result.

On you Jaren.

Thanks, Nick.

Great returns.

We'll just have a look at the composition of the portfolio here.

So on the left-hand side, we've got our fund.

On the right-hand side, the Miski benchmark.

As we can see, global equities are heavily weighted to the US technology sector specifically, and we're quite underweight that.

We've got a more balanced, broad approach with a mix of other things like REITs

infrastructure, construction, financials.

When you look at some of those sectors, we're quite well exposed to a Fed decreasing cycle, which is interest rate decreasing cycle.

And that's kind of how we've been positioned from a macro point of view.

But coming back to our investment philosophy that I mentioned before, we're really focused on making sure we've got those really strong growing companies at a reasonable valuation where we're focusing on the fundamentals of the company, and then we try to pick a

broad brush of sectors, not just heavily weighted in what the Miskis got.

So really very agnostic as to what the index looks like.

And then moving on to some of the companies, again, without the names.

As Ix said, it's a bit of a black box in terms of names, but happy to talk to the portfolio.

As we can see here, our top 10 holdings, average holding is about 7 billion US.

And compared to the Miski, you'll see those average weights with holding companies that are typically not in the benchmark or quite small holdings there.

on that black box bottle once again.

It is something we have developed mainly just to protect our investors.

We want to keep that close in house for their protection.

Invest with us, we aim to do good for you.

And this is our last slide.

Just a bit of a summary of where our portfolio is positioned for the future.

So we've got our P ratio 16, which is

EPS should be EPS so earnings per share growth is also higher than the market.

So focusing on these companies that are growing quickly but not paying too much for the valuation.

Thanks Darren, back to you.

Thanks, Jared and Nick.

That is certainly some excellent returns over the last few months since you've launched the fund.

I'm sure you are tracking what's happening in global markets.

Can you give the audience a little bit of a feel for how you see 2026 playing out?

It thinks, in short, volatile.

But once again, look from our returns and our correlation to the market in those volatile times, we see it more as an opportunity than anything else.

We do see a couple of macroeconomic events playing out potentially a Fed rate cut, along with other global bank quantitative easing.

So rate cut in Australia is a growing potential in the next cycle.

We also see more volatility with, you know, Trump trade tariffs.

But once again, this is something where we've balanced the portfolio in a way that we can take advantage from all these different sources with the aim to capitalise and outperform the market.

And guys, the Miski World Index is obviously quite a large and comprehensive index, covering many industries, countries, types of companies.

How does your fund differ from that benchmark?

Great question, Darren.

So, so far we've outperformed it quite significantly, and really that is down to the key stocks in the portfolio.

Running around 20 stocks, whereas the Miski has a lot more, so we are more concentrated, but we really take

from what's in the benchmark and the Miski index.

We're really focused on finding those select few companies that we believe can outperform the index based on the criteria that we mentioned earlier that we're looking for those high-growth companies trading at reasonable valuations and protecting investors with things like low debt.

So we're really focused on putting together a portfolio that can deliver kind of regardless

of the Miski.

So hopefully over time we'll find that our correlation is actually lower than the index itself.

Okay thank you very much Jared and Nick and congratulations again on the success of the funds since launch.

Thank you Darren.

Thanks Darren.