Recent industry and media dialogues have highlighted the importance of transparency in private debt fund management. Investors are increasingly seeking clear, comprehensive understanding of how investment decisions are made and what factors influence a portfolio selection.

To counter these concerns, I want to share some insights around how we manage risk and investment strategies, settings and decisions at Ark.

A commitment to investor-led strategies

Our approach as a strategic investment fund manager is to bring unique insights to the complexities and ever evolving challenges in private debt markets. We identify nuanced factors influencing performance in different markets, and act accordingly on behalf of our Investors. 

We view these challenges not just as media-driven phenomena but as important signals highlighting the need for more sophisticated risk evaluation and strategic management approaches. 

To maintain our investor-centric approach, we’ve developed a dynamic process of continuous planning, review and strategic assessment that ensures our investment decisions align precisely with our investor’s objectives.  

This approach is particularly evident in our Bedrock fund, which strategically diversifies its investments across a broad number of loans with different borrowers across multiple sectors in specifically identified growth regions. This strategy helps us to optimise risk management whilst delivering strong returns. 

To support our investment strategy and settings, we’ve established a strategic partnership with Urbis, a leading property-economics research firm. This collaboration enables us to conduct comprehensive, on-going assessments of geographies, markets and sectors we may target for our investments. While we publish detailed, bi-annual property outlook reports our approach involves continuous market intelligence gathering and analysis.

By continuously deepening our knowledge of market and industry trends and shifts, we strategically position ourselves to best identify and capitalise on the most compelling investment opportunities for our investors.

Transparency via regular updates and fact sheets for investors

One of the most important aspects of the work we do at Ark is supporting our investors to realise their wealth goals. We believe in complete transparency which is why we have developed and continue to refine our investor communications. 

We choose to clearly articulate our investment strategy, to empower our investors by providing full visibility into their capital allocation. Through monthly performance updates and detailed fact sheets, complete with intuitive graphs and easy-to-digest insights, we give them a fully transparent view of their investments and their performance.

A clear strategy focusing on markets and sectors

This has also led us to develop a very clear strategy of focusing on markets and sectors where we see greater risk adjusted returns.  

Here’s what this looks like in practice:  

  • A focus on Southeast Queensland, Adelaide and Perth, with a cautious approach to Melbourne and Sydney
  • Opportunities in residential and industrial land, subdivision, and small scale built form industrial and childcare
  • Shorter duration loan terms (average 12 months) and 
  • Conservative LVRs (currently average 62.7%). 

Our combined approach of a well-informed strategy, and full transparency not only keeps us focused, it keeps our investors informed so they know exactly where their investments are going and how they’re performing.

If you would like to talk to us in more detail about our investment strategy settings and how we employ these through our funds, please get in touch.