Heysen Investment Partners launches small caps fund

A new investment firm has launched a small caps fund in Adelaide with the hope of creating new career opportunities for local finance graduates.

The founders of a new Adelaide-based investment firm hope their new venture will act as a catalyst for growth in the city’s funds management industry.

Ben Rundle and George Capozzi have already raised $10m in seed funding for their maiden small caps fund – the Heysen Opportunities Fund – which opened to investors this week.

It will be run by their new firm, Heysen Investment Partners, which will operate from an Adelaide head office led by Mr Capozzi, and a second office in Sydney where Mr Rundle has spent more than a decade working in financial markets.

Mr Capozzi has also spent most of his career interstate and overseas before transferring to Taylor Collison’s Adelaide office in 2018.

Mr Rundle said the pair wanted to help create more local career opportunities for Adelaide graduates seeking a career in financial services.

“The idea behind the business is to have a head office in Adelaide and to grow it from there,” he said.

“We want to grow staff there, we want to grow the office there and we want to provide a pathway for uni graduates as well as the current talent pool.

Heysen Investment Partners co-founders George Capozzi and Ben Rundle. Picture: Kelly Barnes

“A lot of the listed companies are in Sydney so we thought this was a way that we could still be in touch with all of the listed companies and all of our contacts, and grow the business in Adelaide.

“When George and I finished university, the only real options at that time were to go to one of the local stockbrokers – there weren’t really any fund managers in town.

“We’re hoping that other people will start other funds management businesses as well, and potentially even come to us as a way to help them get started and build a whole industry.”

Mr Capozzi has spent the past 12 years at Taylor Collison, which has had success from its Adelaide headquarters with the support of a second office in Sydney.

Mr Rundle was most recently a portfolio manager at NAOS Asset Management, and prior to that held roles in investment bank Moelis’ equities team, as well as at Ord Minnett and Macquarie.

The pair are planning to run a portfolio of around 20 to 40 stocks and have already pencilled in local travel company SeaLink as one of its first investments.

They will both invest their own money into the fund, which is open to investors willing to invest at least $100,000.

Mr Capozzi hoped up to $50m would be raised from investors before the fund’s launch in April, with a long-term ambition of growing the size of the portfolio to up to $400m.

Annual returns of 10-15 per cent are expected.

“We’re looking for high quality businesses with clean financials, good capital structure but the key thing is people,” Mr Capozzi said.

“We want to invest in energetic and passionate leaders, founders, owner-operators who are intelligent experts in their field, and who treat the shareholders like owners of the business. For us, that’s really important.”