Salt's long-short fund chalked up another strong year
Salt Funds Management’s Salt Long Short Fund had another strong year, earning a $1.3 million performance fee for the year ended March, although that was down from the $1.4 million fee earned the previous year.
Thursday, July 23rd 2026, 8:04AM
by Jenny Ruth
Overall, fees from the fund, Salt’s biggest earner, rose to $3.5 million from nearly $2.9 million the previous year.
Salt managing director Matt Goodson says the fund’s performance reflects stock selection, explaining that it doesn’t have any correlation to equity markets but aims to deliver equity-like returns.
Its benchmark is the official cash rate plus 5% and it has “a forever highwater mark,” meaning that if it underperforms in any given year, it must recover that underperformance before earning its next performance fee.
It earned nearly 21% in calendar 2025, down from 26.6% the previous year and nearly 6.1% in calendar 2023.
Goodson says the fund has returned a compound post fees annual return since inception in July 2014 of 11.1% and 15.8% annual returns in the last three years.
He estimates the fund manages to achieve performance fees about 50% of the time, reflecting the toughness of its benchmark.
The long short fund is one of two Salt funds with potential performance fee, although the other, a small property fund, didn’t clear its benchmark in the latest year.
Salt is part of the SPH Wealth group that also owns Pathfinder Asset Management and Helm Wealth Advisory, that is in the process of acquiring Octagon Asset Management from Forsyth Barr
Salt’s second-largest earning fund is now the Salt Global Listed Infrastructure Fund, whose management is outsourced to New York-based Cohen & Steers, which Goodson says is the leading global infrastructure manager.
The infrastructure fund’s returns for the year was 18.72% and since inception in August 2021, it has produced annual returns to June this year of 9.78%, beating its benchmark by 2.56%.
The infrastructure fund earned nearly $1.3 million in fees in the year ended March, up from $769,279 the previous year.
The third highest earner, the Salt NZ Dividend Appreciation Fund saw its fee income ease to $1.05 million from $1.09 million the previous year. The fund delivered a 9.95% return for the year ended March.
All up, Salt’s gross fee income rose 16.8% to $10.7 million for the year while net fees after rebates were up 23.5% at nearly $8.1 million.
Total operating expenses were up 13.2% to nearly $7.4 million.
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