TOWER GAM Global Gateway Fund - Int'l Equities with a difference

In November 2003 FundSource awarded the five-star TOWER GAM Global Gateway Fund the International Equity Fund of the Year Award.

Tuesday, February 3rd 2004, 1:00PM

In November 2003 FundSource awarded the five-star TOWER GAM Global Gateway Fund the International Equity Fund of the Year Award. It was not hard to see why – GAM Global Gateway weathered the 2000-2003 international equity bear market remarkably well relative to its FundSource international equity peers. The GAM Global Gateway Fund is ranked first for performance over all time periods among its FundSource international equity peers (excluding property) in the international equities category. And it’s the longest-standing fund of its type domiciled in New Zealand – it was opened in December 1991.

The secret of the Fund’s success lies in its unique combination of assets and trading strategies.

Tactical Asset Allocations are key to the GAM Global Gateway Fund’s success.

In one diversified portfolio the GAM Global Gateway Fund combines fixed income, trading funds, and international equities to satisfy the entire international component of an investment portfolio. Its multi-strategy, active investment strategies of long-only equity, long/short equity, and trading strategies allow for both geographic and tactical asset allocations.

Multiple award-winning fund manager GAM exercises discretion over the proportions of funds allocated to these strategies, and it picks the underlying managers and sets their mandates. The Fund is treated as an absolute return portfolio by GAM, who also manages its NZD currency hedging across a range of 0% to 100%. Thus the absolute returns are designed to cushion the Fund from any adverse rises in the Kiwi dollar. By contrast, international (global) equity funds (as classified by FundSource) are not typically run as absolute return funds, do not make extensive use of long/short or trading strategies, and are not NZD hedged across such a wide discretionary range.

GAM Global Gateway Fund Performance

The impact of GAM Global Gateway’s unique strategy is clear when you look at its performance results in comparison to both the MSCI and sector averages. The Fund has outperformed both measures over all time periods shown in the table above. Over seven years GAM Global Gateway has a returned 3.72%p.a. above the MSCI (or a total of 36.7% higher return).

Growth of $10,000 invested in the TOWER GAM Global Gateway Fund since inception vs MSCI World Index in NZD and 30-day deposit rates

The chart above illustrates the out-performance of the GAM Global Gateway Fund against its benchmarks the MSCI World Index in NZD and the NZD 30-day deposit rate.

The GAM Global Gateway Fund fits well in a number of investor portfolios.

For the single-product investor, the Fund represents an attractive choice due to its absolute return aim, its diversification across global bonds and equities, and its combination of investment strategies to manage all kinds of market conditions. The Fund could stand alone as the international equity sub-component of a diversified portfolio.

Where further diversification is required within an international equity allocation, GAM Global Gateway can complement the standard long-only funds, with its low correlation to equities, especially on the downside. In this capacity GAM Global Gateway acts similarly to a hedge fund.

Award-winning Global Gateway is truly unique in New Zealand. It can be used as a diversified fund, an international equity fund, and a hedge fund. Few other investment products available locally are quite so versatile. Not only is the Fund multi-manager, multi-style, as befits the GAM philosophy, but it is multi-choice in portfolio application depending on investor need.

This is an advertorial supplied by TOWER.

For further information on the TOWER GAM Global Gateway Fund and a copy of the Investment Statement, contact your TOWER Business Development Manager, call 0800 4 TOWER (0800 486 937), email investments.tmf@nz.towerlimited.com or visit www.invest.tower.co.nz