Manager Research

JP du Plessis joined Laurium Capital at the beginning of January as a fixed income specialist and portfolio manager to bring focus to the team’s income and multi-asset capability. He was Deputy Head of Fixed Income at Prescient before resigning in October last year, see our comment here. JP will be responsible for managing two new funds that are in the pipeline at Laurium, which include a low equity balanced fund and a flexible income fund.

Laurium had its origins in equities with a core hedge fund offering before launching long only equity and equity/cash flexible mandates in 2013 and 2014. The business branched out into multi-asset with the launch of their Balanced fund in December 2015, and now with the launch of the new funds that JP will manage. We did question the broader team’s competencies outside of local equities when we first reviewed the balanced fund at the end of 2017, with our concerns primarily around the maturity of their fixed income capability and their asset allocation process, given the more risk-aware mandate. This resulted in us allocating a Tier 3 rating to the balanced fund.

In light of our concerns, Laurium’s decision to focus and resource this area of the business is encouraging. We are spending time with their team in the next few weeks for a full review of the business and the funds we’ve covered before. During this time, we expect to get a better understanding of JP’s fit in the team and his plans for their fixed income capability going forward.