OVERVIEW

Australian Students Asset Management (ASAM) is a Public Ancillary Fund registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission. It invests in ESG-compliant firms while donating 4% of assets under management to registered Australian charities at the end of each financial year.

ASAM is a long-only fund which benefits from the rise in the value of Australian companies. The fund aims to generate attractive returns by investing in undervalued companies from the ASX 300.  

Investment performance

Return Since Inception (03/11/21) : -5.55% 

Investment Philosophy

ASAM takes a value investing approach, believing that great businesses purchased with a margin of safety will provide superior long-term returns. We focus on identifying cash-generative companies with sound balance sheets exposed to structural growth dynamics. 

While our investment mandate is broad, we believe equities provide the most opportunities to generate alpha due to the large number of market participants pursuing different agendas.

Investment Process

1. Quantitative, Qualitative and ESG screens are applied to companies within the ASX 300

2. Top-down and bottom-up blended approaches are used to identify stocks that are trading below fair value

3. Each sector team pitches a stock to the Investment Committee (IC) 

4. Investment Committee (IC) votes on each investment idea. Consideration is given to (a) Thematic exposures/risks and (b) Degrees of conviction on each investment idea

5. Positions are exited once the investment thesis is disproved or stock price falls under the stop-loss level

portfolio construction

We aim to invest no more than 10% into 1 idea and 40% into any 1 GICS industry sector.

risk management process

ASAM places a great deal of importance on assessing downside risk. A risk weight calculator is used to calculate position sizing. A combination of inputs such as volatility and scenario analysis is used to calculate the stock’s position sizing in the portfolio.