Fred Alger Management has launched the Alger Small Cap Focus Fund, a new Alger SICAV sub-fund, to its product line-up.
The Fund will be distributed throughout Europe by La Française, an international asset management firm and a strategic development partner of Fred Alger Management.
Amy Y Zhang (pictured), CFA, Senior Vice President, of Fred Alger Management, (the sub-portfolio manager/investment adviser to Alger SICAV) is the portfolio manager of the Fund. Zhang, who has 18 years of investment experience, joined Alger in 2015 and also serves as portfolio manager of Alger’s Small Cap Focus and Small Cap Growth strategies for US-based investors.
Zhang is a specialist in small cap growth equities and believes in pursuing exceptional small companies that have the potential to become exceptional large companies. She constructs the Fund as a “focused” portfolio with generally fewer than 50 high-conviction securities.
“We look to own fewer, higher-conviction names for a longer time period, which enables us to potentially drive superior investment returns with lower turnover for our clients,” says Zhang. “In addition, we are benchmark agnostic, and we look to concentrate its holdings in high-growth sectors.”
“We are delighted to provide non-US investors with access to Amy’s expertise and proven track record of investing in US small cap growth equities,” says Dan Chung, CEO and Chief Investment Officer. “An important byproduct of focused portfolios is high active share, which we believe is appealing to investors. As we have learned firsthand through our Paris-based partner, La Française, there is significant demand by non-US investors for these types of actively managed strategies, especially in the small cap space, and Alger helps fill that void with this Fund.”
Zhang is supported by a team of 30+ experienced analysts who perform original, bottom-up, fundamental research to find high-conviction opportunities in small cap equities. Alger’s entire investment team follows the firm’s philosophy of investing in companies experiencing ‘Positive Dynamic Change,’ which has been the firm’s investment philosophy for more than 50 years.
“We continue to diversify our product mix in order to meet non-U.S. investor demand. In 2014, we launched two new sub-funds—Alger Emerging Markets Fund and Alger Dynamic Opportunities Fund (a long/short fund). This year, we launched euro-denominated share classes for investors in Eurozone countries,” adds Chung.