When hyperactive fund manager Geoff Wilson chooses the ticker code WAR for his new strategic opportunities fund you know he means business, and it should send a shiver down the spine of company boards that fall onto his radar.
The modus operandi for the $225 million WAM Strategic Value fund, which plans to list next month, is unlikely to see Mr Wilson and his crew sit down for endless cups of tea and sandwiches at the Club or Qantas Chairman’s Lounge, but rather adopt a more combative approach that is in keeping with the “WAR” label.
And the most likely listed investment company to first feel the early clutches of an arm twist is the $295 million Templeton Global Growth Fund. In this case Wilson’s asset management business begins with having already stormed the beaches and set up camp as various WAM entities already hold a 14.7 per cent stake in Templeton Global Growth.
There are a dozen other LICs on the WAM Strategic Value radar that have been accumulated over years by WAM entities, including the sleepy Australian United Investments fund, an emblem of blue-blood Melbourne business founded in 1953 by the late Sir Ian Potter with The Ian Potter Foundation its largest shareholder.
Read more in The Australian.