Nikko Asset Management New Zealand's Auckland-based domestic equity team is responsible for three strategies – Core Equity (including SRI), Concentrated Equity and Property.

Key Characteristics
  • Team approach to investment management
  • Four complementary strategies
  • Active company and board engagement
  • Excellence in quantitative and risk management
  • Transparency of decision making documentation
  • Voting process – vote on all resolutions for all companies held

While the team is structured in the traditional manner with the investment professionals reporting to the Head of Equities, one distinct and compelling advantage Nikko Asset Management New Zealand has over its peers in New Zealand is its holistic team approach to managing investment decisions and client money. Nikko Asset Management New Zealand often refers to this as “joint management” which is distinct from a “dual management” approach where more than one individual has sole responsibility. The team has effectively operated under this structure since May 2001 and is deliberately constructed to create an environment for both rigorous debate and to mitigate any key person risk.

The domestic equity philosophy is based on the premise that the New Zealand market is information inefficient. The application of an active management approach by applying a combination of in-house fundamental research with external industry inputs can provide outperformance over the full investment cycle.

Nikko Asset Management New Zealand believes that early identification of investment ideas and themes in the New Zealand and Australian capital markets creates wealth that leads to investment success. This requires not only a thorough evaluation of information, but also the flexibility to react to changing market fundamentals and environments. As a general rule, a wide range of investment opportunities are held so there is a diversity of return generators in the portfolio.

The process has four key stages – index composition, quantitative modelling, fundamental research and implementation.