Management and governance in listed infrastructure

Australian small cap resource stocks are often viewed as more speculative relative to their industrial counterparts. While historical returns generated by Australian small resources have been more volatile, periods of ‘super-normal’ returns have been demonstrated, resulting from outperformance in select commodity cycles. The ability to consistently pick commodity cycles is inherently difficult and not a focus of our investment process. However, we believe there is significant alpha-generating potential at a stock specific level, although investors need to be selective at the smaller end of the Australian small resources market.

Many of the popular investment themes and crowded stock holdings driving the Australian small cap market in the 2024 calendar year have reversed in the March 2025 quarter. Given the expectation of lower domestic interest rates going forward, many of the high-flying technology, quality and growth exposed companies have been used as funding sources as investors rotate into cheaper quality stocks and/or value/cyclical exposed companies with improving earnings momentum. The question for investors is whether this is just a blip or is the rotation more sustainable? This thematic shift and heightened market volatility is creating increased value adding opportunities for active Australian small cap managers that have a competitive information advantage.