In the lead up to this week’s The Insider: Meet the Fund Manager, Roscoe Widdup from Triple Eight (T8) Capital sat down with Reach Markets to provide a bit of information about his investment strategy, industries of interest and view on the market.

We previously interviewed Mr. Widdup for the Gold Review in November last year. Since then, the wholesale T8 Gold Fund, a hybrid fundamental/quantitatively-managed gold equities fund with proprietary datasets and active risk management, is up over 30% for the past six months – and has achieved cumulative gains of nearly 60% since inception (up until 31st March 2023). The retail T8 Energy Vision Fund is up over 7% during the same period, and has produced cumulative gains of over 110% since inception.

Mr. Widdup, who spent eight years at Goldman Sachs working in asset management and equity research – specifically metals & mining – attributes his success in funds management to a few key factors.

T8 also has an advisory board with deep experience across the industries they invest in.

The level of sophistication involved in T8’s analysis is at the highest end. This includes a rigorous ESG due diligence process, in house commodity analysis, and extremely diligent risk management. This high standard of stock selection, combined with a concentrated style of active management, has allowed T8’s funds to outperform their respective comparable indexes since inception as at 31 March 2023. The team is highly engaged and can adjust the portfolio in a timely fashion.

As far as the market goes, Mr. Widdup clearly observes a lower than average risk appetite, especially towards equities. He also commented that despite nearing the peak of the rate cycle, there is still significant uncertainty stemming from elevated inflation and the risk of regional bank failures. These periods pass and he considers that they appear to be much closer to the end than the beginning.

T8’s investment strategy is typically biased towards un-levered and net cash balance sheets. The incredible access to capital that companies have had access to over the last 10 years appears to have come to an end, and Mr. Widdup’s investee companies have business models that are fit for today’s environment in that they are not dependent on an ultra low cost of capital in order to execute on growth strategies.

When it comes to investing in clean energy, there are three focus areas for T8 – renewables, energy storage and electrification. Within those three verticals, T8 invests across the whole of the supply chain – from a raw materials to consumer goods and services. This broad but focussed investment universe gives the portfolio access to companies that can prosper in different market environments.

On the gold front, Mr. Widdup has previously identified the commodity’s two sworn enemies as a strong US dollar, and rising real yields on US treasuries. There are three other relatively unforeseen factors that have recently been serving as tailwinds to the precious metal. The US banking crisis, the de-dollarisation of trade and central banks reducing the US dollar currency reserves.

Join Roscoe Widdup this Friday, 12th May at 12pm (AEST) on our The Insider: Meet the Fund Manager webcast to hear about his favourite stocks, investment strategy, market insights and more. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions during the session. To book yourself in, click here.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.