By Alex Gluyas
Wilson Asset Management’s flagship $1.9 billion listed investment company WAM Capital outperformed its benchmark in the 2021 financial year, riding high on an early call on the e-commerce wave and the resurrection of beaten-up cyclical stocks.
WAM Capital’s investment portfolio, which focuses on small- and mid-cap companies, increased 37.5 per cent during the period, beating its S&P/ASX All Ordinaries benchmark by 7.3 per cent and the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Index by 4.3 per cent. The LIC’s annual performance since inception is 16.6 per cent.
“We were lucky enough to call the trend towards e-commerce early through the back end of the 2020 financial year after the virus hit, so we added companies like Temple & Webster and Kogan,” lead portfolio manager Oscar Oberg said.
“We sold those companies well in September and October, then sifted through the small and mid-caps, finding beaten up cyclicals that we thought the market would transition to.”
While WAM Capital kept up with developing trends in its market-driven holdings, the other part of its portfolio, referred to as “research-driven”, remained largely unchanged.
Viva Energy remains that side of the portfolio’s top holding at 3 per cent, reflecting the high hopes Mr Oberg has for the business despite the stock falling 5 per cent over the past year.
Read more in the Australian Financial Review.