By John Stensholt
Buoyed by some signs of recovery on the field, cashed-up rugby union aficionados have already poured $12m into a new investment fund designed to help save the sport off it.
The recently launched Rugby Future Fund will be the beneficiary of the stock-picking and investment acumen of a group of fund managers who will forgo part or all of their management fees. Instead, the money will flow to the Australian Rugby Foundation.
Fund managers investing on behalf of the RFF include Phil King of Regal Funds Management, Geoff Wilson from Wilson Asset Management, Doug Tynan of GCQ and Plato Investment Management lead portfolio manager Dr David Allen.
Seed investors include Rugby Australia and ARF board members, and a small group of supporting family offices. These include Wilson, the billionaire Millner family, Skier Capital, Russell Aboud and the family office of Brisbane stockbroker Steve Wilson.
As revealed by The Australian in June, the RFF is targeting an initial $100m capital raising and eventually plans to donate 1 per cent of its gross assets per year to the ARF.
The ARF’s mandate is to “promote investment into Australian rugby across all aspects of the game”, according to documents seen by The Australian, and sophisticated investors can choose for their funds to be directed towards women’s or community rugby projects or high performance aspects of the code.
Other investment identities who will look after the money include Harvest Lane managing director Luke Cummings, Blackwattle’s Michael Skinner, Christopher Joye of Coolabah Capital and Contact Asset Management’s Tom Millner.
Wilson told The Australian the fund would invest with the target of giving investors the chance “to get access to boutique managers with the aim of outperforming the market but with less volatility.
“We’ll likely have about 75 to 80 per cent in Australian equities, and then probably about 20 to 25 per cent in global equities or high-yield cash products, to give you a bit of diversity.
Wilson, a one-time rangy second rower who played representative rugby for Victoria in the early 1980s against the touring Scotland national team – “I wasn’t quick enough, and we got badly beaten that day,” he recalled – noted the positive feeling around the sport after the Wallabies win against England last Sunday morning featuring a starring debut by new recruit Joseph-Akuso Suaalii.
“Everyone in Australia had a window over the weekend with Suaalii what high performance can return if you invest in it and get it right,” Wilson said.
“And if you put what we’re trying to do with the fund into a sporting analogy, it is exactly like the Wallabies did. You want some solid performance, which they did throughout the match, and then just at the end you want some outperformance, which they also did.
“So you want some solid returns with some real outperformance as well. And we have a good group of managers, who will probably have more of an absolute [return] bias.”
The RFF’s investment committee comprises former Ellerston Capital chief executive Brian O’Sullivan, Kevin Wan Lum from LGT Crestone, Fiona Mann of Brighter Super and Michael Mulcahy from JANA Investment Advisors.
The funds would be invested with the fund managers on a similar basis to the ASX-listed Future Generation fund that donates to youth at risk and mental health charities.
Launched in 2014, the ARF is the philanthropic arm of governing body Rugby Australia. Last year, donors gave $1.2m to the foundation for women’s rugby, high performance and community and coaching clinics, according to RA’s most recent annual report.
The foundation made $582,137 in grants in 2023, the annual report states.
As for whether there was an investment analogy for the Wallabies finally ending the country’s 22-year Bledisloe Cup drought and beating New Zealand in a series, Wilson said: “That would be a roaring bull market. Let’s see if that happens.”
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