I don't disagree. If they sell a stock, but can't find something cheap - then fair enough, hold cash. Don't overpay.
But holding an average of say 15-20% cash for long periods as they had is IMO, a big macro call from a small managed fund. Was there really no stock worth investing in for over year/s that you would rather hold 15% in a bank account earning stuff all, while charging your clients fees for that privilege?
If for example, you had $1m invested in the fund, and they on average held 15% cash throughout the year, you had $150k of your money sitting there earning stuff all, while paying $1650 in fees for that cash to just sit there.
Yes, cash is an option to quickly pounce on opportunities. But you can also pivot and sell cheap stocks to buy even cheaper stocks. The only issue with Forager is that it often goes for small cap businesses where low levels of liquidity in a stock often does not give them that flexibility.
They could manage it perhaps by capping a proportion of the stocks to small, less liquid cap stocks and keeping the rest invested in more liquid stocks they can rotate out of quickly if something really good comes up and they need to act fast.
I can understand Warren Buffett holding a big proportion of cash because it's hard to find opportunities with enough depth to stuff his billions of cash into, but for a small fund manager, this should not be an issue with the right approach.
FOR Price at posting:
61.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Not Held
