Warakirri terminates ethical global equities fund

Warakirri Asset Management is terminating its Ethical Global Equities Fund, citing several factors that contributed to the decision.

The Warakirri Ethical Global Equities Fund will be wound up in the coming weeks following a review of its viability.

Warakirri said it had assessed several internal and external factors to determine whether the fund was likely to be able to meet its investment objective and "stay true to its key attributes."

It comes as the underlying investment manager Northcape Capital, which Warakirri has partnered with on the fund since 2020, is winding up its global equities strategy.

It said several review triggers had eventuated, "namely the short to medium term underperformance and our recent knowledge of the underlying investment manager, Northcape Capital's, decision to close down their global equities investment management capability, suggesting that the fund is unlikely to meet the objective and key attributes."

As of February end, the fund has total assets of $100 million. About 80% of this was held in the Northcape offering, and just $18.3 million was through the Warakirri vehicle.

"The primary reason behind the decision is the requirement for all Northcape's investment products to have sufficient scale to ensure commercial sustainability," a spokesperson for Northcape told FS Sustainability.

"Given the current low level of funds under management and the prevailing market environment, we believe the fund would not be able to achieve Northcape's growth ambitions within an acceptable timeframe."