Thomas mints mandate with Super Fund

Rebecca Thomas's Mint Asset Management has won a mandate with the NZ Super Fund following AMP Capital's decision to outsource its management.

Thursday, July 2nd 2015, 1:50PM

Since AMP Capital made changes to its business the NZ Super Fund has been running a process to find a new manager for some of its $1 billion-plus New Zealand share portfolio.

Mint won that process and has been appointed to a $150 million active New Zealand equities mandate for the fund.

NZ Super Fund says there were four things which favoured Mint:

Mint has or is implementing institutional-quality systems and processes.
That they had sufficient available capacity for our mandate and a clear discipline in sticking to that view of capacity. Capacity is our view of how much money a specific investment style can manage, in a specific market, before the expected excess return from that strategy begins to decline.
That they have an investments team with a solid track record and with whom we believe we can work well.
That the relationship is underpinned with mutually attractive terms and conditions.

The fund also gained a good insight into the local funds management industry during the RFP process, and was pleased with what it found.

"We last looked at the industry a couple of years ago. Relative to then we have been pleased to see new managers, and that as a whole it is maturing in terms of its systems and processes," a spokeman said.

"Capacity remains quite tight, however, in our view. This is understandable given ongoing KiwiSaver flows. So we look forward to more new entrants, and ongoing development of the industry’s middle and back office capabilities."

NZ Super Fund chief investment officer Matt Whineray, said the fund was committed to using a combination of external managers alongside its internal team to manage its $1-billion plus portfolio of New Zealand equities.

“Mint is a welcome addition to our stable of managers and we look forward to working closely with them,” Whineray said.

“Their appointment follows a comprehensive selection process.”

The NZ Super Fund also has an active New Zealand equity mandate with Devon Asset Management. A further mandate with Milford Asset Management remains suspended and is being managed by the Guardians until further notice.

The Mint appointment was effective yesterday and transition of the mandate to Mint is now complete.

Tags: Mint Asset Management NZ Super Fund Rebecca Thomas