(July-2003) Perpetual backflips on Aussie equity mandates

Perpetual, which closed its books to new Australian equity institutional business three years ago, is now on the hunt for new Australian equity mandates from super funds.

Perpetual’s head of institutional business Nathan Parkin says the move follows the loss of around $200-$300 million in funds under management — or 10 per cent of its book — after the departure of former head of equities, Peter Morgan, in September last year.

The biggest mandate lost was that from industry fund REST and a small amount was also lost because of rationalisation amongst clients.

Parkin says: “We want a stable operation without turnover in our books. We would prefer not to pitch for new business but if takeovers within clients mean some have moved away from us, and others want to look at international investments, we would like to recoup that.”

Funds under management levels may have become a high-profile barometer of ability but Parkin says managing small amounts does not always bring results. Perpetual’s equities team outperformed the benchmark by 0.5 per cent when Morgan was in charge. It is now ahead by 4.5 per cent. “Some managers have five times less money and we have still beaten them”, adds Parkin.