Australia's best performing micro cap fund in 2021: Magnolia Capital

SYDNEY, March 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Boutique investment and advisory firm Magnolia Capital has released its CY 2021 data that confirms its Magnolia Capital Emerging Companies Microcap Fund 1 ("the Fund") was the highest-performing microcap fund in Australia in the 12 months leading to December 2021, when compared to other microcap funds listed on Morningstar.

The extremely high performance was driven by a dozen investments that returned significantly above the last 12 month returns, including the investment made in Telix Pharmaceuticals, Nimy Resources Ltd, Forrestania Resources Limited, Pancontinental Oil & Gas NL, and Prospa Group Ltd.

The Fund has so far committed $50 million and has a target final close of $80 million, which Magnolia expects to achieve in the coming months.

Uncharacteristically for an Australian actively managed fund, however, Magnolia has contributed 70 per cent of the funds under management (FUM) from its own balance sheet to date. 

Magnolia will also remain the majority investor moving forward, with all profits from the Fund recycled to scale the FUM.

Magnolia has successfully been providing private real estate finance and other services to ultra-high net worth individuals since 2015, but is now prioritising equities and other alternative funds management as the core of its business.

Magnolia charges extremely competitive management fees for an actively managed fund of 1 per cent per annum, plus 19.5 per cent carried interest over a 5 per cent hurdle. 

Managing Director, Founder, and CIO Mitchell Atkins believes Magnolia's secret sauce lies in its strong alignment to investors, deep relationships, proprietary deal flow, a highly active approach to asset management, and its high-performing and uncharacteristically young investment team.

Mitchell Atkins, MD, CIO & Founder of Magnolia Capital, said: "We are extremely proud of the performance of our microcap fund, and the 20+ team at Magnolia Capital that has made this possible.

"Magnolia Capital started from humble beginnings, representing the investment interests of a small number of ultra-high net worth individuals. But we are now diversifying our investor base to accept investment from a wider range of sophisticated and institutional investors."

"We put our own money where our mouth is, backing each of our funds with a majority contribution from our balance sheet. Our management fees purely cover the cost of building value for our investors and are a reflection of our total and complete alignment on the above-market performance and returns we generate."

The Fund was launched on 3 November 2020, however Magnolia started successfully trading the microcap strategy from its own balance sheet from May 2019.

Magnolia Capital is a boutique funds management and advisory group with nearly $1 billion in funds under advice, operating across Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Its Australian micro-cap fund was the top performer in its category in 2021. Magnolia was founded in 2015 and built its reputation as a specialist property and alternatives investor for family office and ultra-high net worth clients, but has since diversified and now also counts institutional investors as investors.