Sonia Madigan:
We’re at the Kalgoorlie Super PITch event and I’m joined now by Chris Judd.
Now he himself has a fund, yes he’s a footballer, well he was a footballer but he has his own fund which was launched just two months ago.
So to start with Chris perhaps tell us about that.
Chris Judd:
Yeah so Cerutty Macro Fund is relatively new, so we’re two months into our existence.
So it’s myself and a young guy, who’s an analyst, Tom Galanti.
So, we’ve been really excited with the uptake so far and I guess the mandate is really broad global equities, long only and really looking to invest along sort of macro themes that we like.
Sonia Madigan:
Well, what are the macro themes that you’re seeing here at Kalgoorlie Diggers & Dealers event?
Chris Judd:
Yeah, look, I mean, the clean energy and battery metals have been a big thematic for quite a while and we’ve got some copper exposure, but we haven’t been chasing the lithium or rare earth stories.
Now, we think gold is a really interesting one at the minute.
Gold is only eight per cent of its all-time highs, but the sentiment towards gold is really quite low at the minute.
We certainly think the sanctions the US put on Russia, post the Ukraine invasion, were really significant longer term and maybe underappreciated by the market.
We think more and more countries will choose not to store their surplus in US Treasuries
going forward, will choose to store them in gold as we’re seeing obviously with Russia who has no choice, but with China who’s been doing the same thing since 2013.
We think more and more countries will follow suit.
So we’re interested in gold, a bit of a contrast from the Aussie gold producers and the West African ones at the minute.
The Aussie gold producers, whilst they have a more favourable jurisdiction are really getting wrecked by their cost base and some of the West Africans where you know they’re a bit fruity in the jurisdiction but are just printing cash with a much lower cost base.
Sonia Madigan:
So what do you hope to achieve by being here in Kalgoorlie for the Diggers & Dealers event?
Chris Judd:
Oh, look, it’s a good way to educate yourself on different companies that you haven’t seen.
We’re obviously based on the East Coast, so it’s really efficient to be able to catch up with a whole heap of Western Australian mining executives or investors in sort of one hit.
And just good to get a temperature check.
I remember this time last year, sitting in on Pilbara present and lithium felt like it was just all the rage, and I wasn’t sure of it at the time, but it had a really good period post that.
And funnily enough, while gold feels a bit, people are almost over gold for the time being, but I always feel that’s the most interesting thing to come out of the conference so far.
Sonia Madigan:
Now, of course, you’ve been the host of the Super PITch event, which gave companies
five minutes to sell their story.
I’m going to give you one minute to sell your story as to why people should consider investing with your funds.
Chris Judd:
Oh, wow. There you go.
Look, we’re small, both by design and necessity.
We think there’s some advantages to being small.
You’re able to get in and out of companies that are under-researched or not researched at all, and we’re gonna embrace more market volatility than a lot of funds.
We’re not looking to manage month-to-month returns, but really looking for those long-term secular trends, withstanding some intra-month volatility, but hopefully getting some big results at the end.