Harness the power of Macrobusiness in your portfolio

David, Leith and the team at Macrobusiness have have partnered with the like-minded asset manager, Nucleus Wealth, to bring you the MB Fund. Both David and Leith sit on the investment team at Nucleus Wealth. The MB Fund is run and operated by Nucleus Wealth.

The MB Fund encompasses over 50 years experience in global markets and provides the Macrobusiness readership with an exciting opportunity to convert the many themes of the blog into a competent and fully featured investment solution.

You may recognise Nucleus Wealth’s Head of Investments Damien Klassen and Head of Operations Tim Fuller from the MB Fund podcast. Additionally, they regularly write articles featured on MacroBusiness.

1. Tactical Funds 

In these funds, we make the decision when and what mix of Australian shares, International shares, cash or bonds to invest in.

There are three sub-funds, and typically we will blend all three of these funds for you so that you get a mix of assets appropriate for your income needs and your risk preference: 

• Growth: In this fund there is a higher weighting of growth investments. Clients with a lower tolerance for risk can blend this model with other models to achieve a more appropriate risk outcome.
• Accumulation:  This is a conservative portfolio for investors who do not have an income requirement. There is a low weighting of growth investments, and we buy stocks in this portfolio without regard to the dividend yield.
• Income: This is a conservative portfolio for investors who have a preference for income rather than capital gains. There is a very low weighting of growth investments, and stocks in this portfolio are screened for yield.

2. Tactical Foundation 

This is a fund for investors with lower balances. It aims to provide investors with an introduction to the benefits of individual share ownership through a separately managed account, whilst still ensuring investors maintain a reasonable share parcel size.

 We again make the decision when and what mix to buy of Australian shares, International shares, cash or bonds.

Due to the lower balances though, direct international share ownership is not feasible and so this model achieves this through an individual Australian share portfolio, a selection of International exchange traded funds, and defensive holdings in bonds and cash.

3. Shares only portfolios

These are “carve outs” of the Australian or International parts of the above portfolios.

They are a core holding,  designed to have exposure to the large capitalisation part of the Australian or International market. Its intended for investors who wish to do their own asset allocation, and can use this fund to get exposure to higher quality and cheaper stocks in the Australian market.

The funds maintain minimal cash balances – i.e. the tactical funds above will reduce share weights when stock markets are expensive or risky, whereas this fund will remain fully invested. It is up to the investor to manage the asset allocation when buying this fund

We have ethics. Integrity, honesty, reliability.

However, when it comes to investing the questions become more nuanced and the answers often depend on the individual.  

For example, some people like nuclear power for efficiency and carbon reduction benefits. Other people believe the risks to the environment and contamination are too high.

At MB Fund, we don’t dictate the ethics. You choose from 28 different ethical overlays over your portfolio so that we don’t buy stocks that conflict with your beliefs.

Whilst engaging professionals to look after any part of your life is going to cost money, it should not mean the difference between a great and a less than ideal retirement. At MB Fund, we strive to keep costs low by cutting out the many middlemen that reside in most of the current investment options available today.

If you choose to invest with MB Fund there are two fees that are charged:

• A management fee paid to Nucleus for making the investment decisions of 0.64%.
• A platform fee paid to a 3rd party platform provider (Praemium) not related to Nucleus. This money provides you with custodial services, tax reporting, online access and trading. The fee varies depending upon the amount invested (fully explained in the Product Disclosure Statement), indicatively an investor with $200,000 would pay around 0.44%, an investor with $2m would pay around 0.19%.

• Brokerage Costs. We have secured very low-cost brokerage. 

Costs are important.

Our mission is to provide a technology-based investment solution that delivers portfolio tailoring, transparency and world-class investment research to our clients whilst sharing the cost efficiencies that come with not needing a branch on every corner.

As an investor with the MB Fund, you only pay the costs associated with your account, not for the managed pool as found in other alternatives, and take advantage of the minimised worldwide brokerage and administration costs that come with using a platform that is not owned by a large institution.

When you apply, we provide a full breakdown of the costs for your investment.

In early 2019, research house Independent Investment Research looked at our research processes and performance and rated our Tactical Growth fund “recommended”.

Click here for a copy of their report. 

At Nucleus, we are dedicated to transparency. We want you to be able to see exactly where your money is invested and why.

We offer a range of transparency options: