17 Apr 2017
The Cyan C3G Fund posted a 1.2% gain in March, delivering our investors a return of 3.1% for the first 3 months of 2017, closely tracking our long-term performance expectations of 10-15% p.a.
March Review
It’s been tough going at the smaller end of the market since late 2016, however we have protected investors from much of the weakness through higher cash holdings over this period. Recently there have been a number of positive signs that the rotation of interest has returned to the small cap sector, as such we have been prudently allocating small amounts of new capital into the market.
The Cyan C3G Fund did not have much in the way of either outlying positive or negative performers over March. One of our more recent investments, equipment financier Axsesstoday (AXL) www.axsesstoday.com.au completed an oversubscribed $12m share placement at $1.42 to fund further growth and invest in additional IT system enhancements. Given the strong underlying performance of the company and the discount to current $1.55 share price, the C3G Fund subscribed to shares in the raising.
The merger of Afterpay (AFY), www.afterpay.com.au and Touchcorp (TCH) www.touchcorp.com was given the green light in March by the directors of both businesses. The merger is expected to be completed before the end of June and we fully expect the scale and cost synergy benefits to be increasingly understood (and valued) by the broader market in the coming months.
The only disappointing performance came from domestic credit provider Money3 (MNY) www.money3.com.au which fell 13% (or 10.6% after accounting for the 2.5c dividend). As we noted last month, MNY posted a solid 1H17 NPAT of $13.7m, well ahead of market expectations and all business metrics look outstanding. However with a falling share price we’ve been reluctant to add significantly to our existing position and hence the impact on the Fund has not been as severe as it could have otherwise been.
Some small rises were experienced from core fund holdings including Capitol Health (CAJ), PSC Insurance (PSI), and Skydive the Beach (SKB).
Media
Cyan featured in some video segments with Livewire Markets www.livewiremarkets.com during the month.
Buy Hold Sell: Five fallen angels
Amazon: The big shark comes in…
We also wrote a couple of articles including:
The risks of investing in Chinese value traps
5 reasons why this acquisitive industrial ASX mid-cap will continue to re-rate.
Outlook
As previously noted, the Cyan C3G Fund has been conservatively positioned with the cash weighting occasionally touching 50%. The weightings of our core positions in the Fund are always being tweaked with respect to underlying company fundamentals, daily movement in share prices and changes in market sentiment.
For the second month, our weightings have been increased slightly as the Fund’s companies have performed ahead of expectations and prices have been relatively unchanged. We believe the market is now experiencing the start of a rotation back into smaller companies and hence the risk/opportunity balance is beginning to swing back in favour of the small-cap sector.
The longer-term track record of the Fund remains outstanding. Over the past two years the C3G Fund has provided investors with returns of 20%+ p.a. and has achieved this with lower volatility (risk) than comparable indices.
We thank all our investors for their support and look forward to keeping you all updated with the Fund’s progress.
As always we are contactable in person if investors wish to discuss any aspect of their investment in the Cyan C3G Fund.
Dean Fergie & Graeme Carson
Cyan Investment Management
AFSL No. 453209