Manager Research
all members of our manager research team have over ten years of investment experience.
Stellar Capital Partners (Stellar) announced the sale of its stake in Cadiz to Warwick yesterday. Stellar currently owns 90% of Cadiz, which it acquired from various parties between 2015 and 2016. The remaining 10% of the business is held by staff. The deal will be Warwick’s first foray into third party retail and the institutional asset management space.
One of our major concerns with Cadiz has been the ongoing structural and shareholder changes the business has undergone over the last few years. From its listing on the JSE, to being bought by Blackstar and being bought out by Stellar and delisting, to now being sold to Warwick. The ongoing business changes have also had a major impact on Cadiz's ability to retain key investment talent, which is evidenced by their respected fixed income team, consisting of Jonathan Myerson, Bronwyn Blood and Vaneshan Naidoo, leaving for RMI (and forming the boutique Granate Asset Management) in 2015. It is highly likely that Cadiz’s current CEO and joint-CIO, Shawn Stockigt, who has been credited with stabilising the business, will not join the team at Warwick.
As a consequence of our concerns with the business and the investment team, we had already downgraded the Cadiz Absolute Yield to Tier 3 in 2015. The recent changes serve to reaffirm our views on the fund and we would continue to recommend that there are better investment alternatives in this category.
Cadiz sold to Warwick
3 May 2018