FYI IFMs strategy on asx micro caps... The Australian Micro Caps...

FYI IFMs strategy on asx micro caps...

The Australian Micro Caps market is a large and poorly researched investment universe. Of the over 800 stocks in the range of $10m to $300m market cap (what IFM Investors would broadly define as the Micro Caps universe), a minority have broker coverage. Our view is that there is a significant opportunity for professional investors to do fundamental research and gain an information advantage over the market.

Investment philosophy

The team’s investment philosophy is that the Australian Micro Caps market has a number of inefficiencies that create added value for disciplined, professional investors. We believe opportunities can arise in all sectors of the market, as well as across the value-growth style spectrum. Hence we manage a style-agnostic strategy and employ a focused, rigorous fundamental research to identify mispriced stocks in the investment universe combined with a systematic methodology to extract alpha while maintaining a low relative risk portfolio.

The team aims to exploit investment opportunities in micro caps through:

• Dynamic modelling of company  financials with proprietary valuation techniques
• Qualitative assessment to systematically evaluate non-financial aspects of a business
• Meeting with company management to gain a better understanding of the business.