Investor Insights

Breville Group (ASX:BRG) is a company owned in the Montgomery Small Companies Fund and one we have written about extensively.

After exceeding $21 per share in late-2021, Megaport Limited (ASX:MP1) experienced a very rough 17 months. The company now seems to have its mojo back from the trough in April 2023. Not only has the share price more than tripled to $12. 15, but this has been accompanied by some very positive company announcements.

Another major retailer delivered its FY23 results providing a further data point for conditions in the consumer sector of the economy, which, it is worth remembering, represents a little over 50 per cent of the Australian economy.

Koh Young Technology, a world leader in 3D measurement and inspection technology and Tomra Systems, a Norwegian multinational corporation manufacturing collection and sorting products are two transformative players in the field of technology, both held in the Polen Capital Global Small and Mid Cap Fund.

If the headline didn’t grab your attention, that’s probably because you thought it was about interest rates. In fact, it’s about the equity market itself.

In this video insight, David Buckland, CEO of Montgomery, and Sean Sequeira, Chief Investment Officer of Australian Eagle Asset Management, discuss the positive impact of Australian Eagle’s partnership with Montgomery. They delve into recent company earnings reports, highlighting Cochlear’s (ASX:COH) return to growth as indicative of its strong business quality and long-term potential, independent of external factors. They also mention QBE’s (ASX:QBE) efforts to improve margins through enhanced risk management for better earnings quality, potentially leading to a higher market rating.

It was comforting to read CoreLogic’s latest update on the state of the property market in August, which also happens to be the peak month for low fixed-rate mortgages rolling off onto much higher variable rates. You may recall for the last year or so we have held a counter-consensus view about the so-called ‘fix-rate mortgage cliff’.

We are pleased to announce that the Polen Capital Global Small and Mid Cap Fund has been recently added to both the Netwealth Super/Pension and Investments (IDPS) menus. This is the second of Polen Capital’s global strategies that has been made available to investors via Netwealth, the first being the Polen Capital Global Growth Fund (B Class Units).

Market volatility and substantial shifts in share prices provide the opportunity to refine the businesses we own. During the June quarter the Polen Capital Global Small and Mid Cap Fund initiated four new positions in Alight Solutions, Markel, Shift, and Tomara.

During the June quarter the Polen Capital Global Growth Fund added two new holdings to the portfolio, Workday which was quickly built-up to a full-sized holding and a smaller position in Globant. Workday is a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for human capital management (HCM) and finance, targeting globally scaled enterprises and, increasingly, small and medium businesses.

There are a handful of retailers in Australia that we can class in terms of quality as superior, if not unsurpassable. Those retailers include JB Hi-Fi, ARB and Reece Plumbing. Another is Furniture giant Nick Scali (ASX:NCK). The company unveiled its financial results for FY23, Friday, demonstrating praiseworthy resilience and adaptability despite the uncertain market conditions.

In this week’s video insight I joined Montgomery’s head of distribution Scott Phillips to discuss a current holding in the Montgomery Small Companies Fund, Alliance Aviation Services (ASX:AQZ). Alliance Aviation Services falls into the category of Aviation, although it is not a typical airline business. I identify why it is a holding in the Montgomery Small Companies Fund and what we expect in terms of its future earnings.