An experienced lawyer and an expert in value investing, Massimo Malvestio established Praude Asset Management in 2009. Licensed by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), the asset management company manages several successful funds, including Hermes Linder Fund SICAV, which the expert launched in 2004. Since then, the fund managed to record notable results, such as a track record of performance of over 600% (compared to the fund’s launch value) and an accrued performance for investors (net of fees) of 11.7%. In an interview with “I Corrieri del Rispamio”, an Italian magazine dedicated to investment and asset management, Massimo Malvestio talked about this and the strategies put in place by his fund.
As he pointed out, the fund’s strong growth is due both to the performance achieved and to word of mouth: “This is how we managed to have over 340 million euros of assets under management”, he said, “with our fund among the best 1% of Small Cap funds by return in three of the last six years (Bloomberg)”. Hermes Linder Fund’s excellent performance was also confirmed by the Thomson Reuter Lipper Fund Award for “Best Fund” over 3 years in the “Equity Europe 2017” category.
Among the other funds launched over the years there are Total Return and Low Volatility: however, Hermes Linder Fund remains the “spearhead” of the funds managed by Praude Asset Management, as Massimo Malvestio confirmed. “The fund has considerable freedom of movement”, he explained, “and today invests mainly in Italy. We also use legal arbitration to drive performance, while leveraging on the opportunities offered by legislation. On average, these situations occur every three to four months”. In the interview, he also pointed out that “we are basically long-term investors, with holdings remaining in the portfolio for years”. As for investment areas, “in general, we really like the Star segment (now Euronext Star Milan – ed) and industrial companies. It is possible to find well-known companies of extraordinary quality. The only downside is that some of them are not very internationalized”.
While recalling that investments in the banking sector have been few so far, Massimo Malvestio stressed that the fund is open to “solid and cash-generating realities”. The fund’s value investing strategy, he added, uses “a bottom-up approach by selecting stocks of companies that have stable earnings growth, credible business, capable management, low leverage, reasonable multiples and good dividend yields”. These elements can be found not only in Italy, but also in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, and other European markets, concluded Massimo Malvestio.