March Vini Catena, billed as the world’s first global equity fund to invest solely in the global wine industry, was launched in May 2009. It invests across the shares of distribution companies, production wineries, agricultural companies and companies in the ancillary wine industry.
The Family Businesses Fund was launched at the end of 2011, and has so far amassed over €30m in assets under management. The firm says it takes advantage of research which suggests that quoted family businesses are more resilient to economic downturns and have more predictable earnings.
It invests mainly in listed equity of companies that were initially set up by one or more families, in which one or more families still own a significant stake (i.e. at least 15%) or in which the management of one or more families are involved.
“Such businesses are the backbone of the global economy as they represent some 80% of all companies around the world,” said March Gestión de Fondos chief executive José Louis Jimenez.
“This has provided us with insight into an ownership model that works particularly well when economic conditions get tough. As we’ve seen in the UK with recent corporate failures in the quoted sector, few of them appear to be family businesses – we know such businesses have resilience.”
The third fund Torrenova is the €700m flagship go-anywhere absolute return global asset allocation strategy. It aims to outperform inflation by 2% while avoiding downside risk.
“Torrenova has been established for over 25 years and in many respects it epitomises the approach taken both by the March family and March Gestión de Fondos towards long-term intergenerational investment – the fund doesn’t seek taking significant risk,” said Jimenez.
“As an asset manager MGF does not invest in esoteric investments, rather we believe in straight-forward value investing which has led, over many years, to a decent if not excellent track record.”
