The smaller end of the ASX is home to some very interesting companies. The Small Ords has underperformed the large caps recently – but are we at an inflection point?
Dermot Ryan, Portfolio Manager at Renaissance Smaller Companies Fund, talks to Sean Aylmer about the opportunities he sees in small caps, from retailers to gold miners.
This is general information only. You should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.
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Sean Aylmer: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Daily Interview. I’m Sean
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Sean Aylmer: Aylmer. We love talking about small- cap stocks on Fear
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Sean Aylmer: and Greed. There are some really interesting stories and it’s
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Sean Aylmer: always good speaking to professional investors about the opportunities they
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Sean Aylmer: see at the smaller end of the market. Remember, this
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Sean Aylmer: is general information only and you should seek professional advice
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Sean Aylmer: before making any investment decisions. Dermot Ryan is portfolio manager
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Sean Aylmer: at Renaissance Smaller Companies Fund. Dermot, welcome back to Fear
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Sean Aylmer: and Greed.
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Dermot Ryan: Thanks, Sean. Wonderful to be on your show again.
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Sean Aylmer: How are you seeing markets in the Aussie economy at
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Sean Aylmer: the moment?
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Dermot Ryan: Look, at the moment we’ve got very macro- driven markets.
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Dermot Ryan: There’s a lot of noise and chop around inflation rates.
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Dermot Ryan: We’re 18 months into a global rate hike cycle and
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Dermot Ryan: fundamentals seem to have gone out the window on the
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Dermot Ryan: stock market as a result. We’re seeing consumers and investors
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Dermot Ryan: fret about these higher interest rates of what they’re going
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Dermot Ryan: to mean. We’re starting to see the global indicators starting
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Dermot Ryan: to slow down because of the interest rate breaks being
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Dermot Ryan: applied. And this is something we saw in the US
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Dermot Ryan: about a year ago where consumer spending kind of screeched
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Dermot Ryan: to a stop there when they were around the same
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Dermot Ryan: interest rate levels. And it’s fair to say it’s happening
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Dermot Ryan: here now and we’re seeing a number of similar kind
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Dermot Ryan: of retail profit downgrades coming through from our local retailers
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Dermot Ryan: in the same way as we saw Walmart and all
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Dermot Ryan: the other US retailers do the same last year.
What
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Dermot Ryan: we find is these induced slowdowns take a few steps
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Dermot Ryan: or a little while to set in. At the start,
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Dermot Ryan: people don’t notice the interest rates going up. Then they
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Dermot Ryan: start to panic about maybe the size of their mortgage
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Dermot Ryan: or their interest bills. Then they start to pull back
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Dermot Ryan: on spending. But after a while they start to work
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Dermot Ryan: around these things. We’ve seen from the ABS stats, a
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Dermot Ryan: lot of people going to get a second job or
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Dermot Ryan: doing more hours at work and things kind of settle
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Dermot Ryan: down after a while. In worst- case scenario, people will
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Dermot Ryan: sell some assets to get their debt position right, but
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Dermot Ryan: eventually, things settle into a new equilibrium, and demand and
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Dermot Ryan: inflation should normalize in that event.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. So, let’s bring on to the market and we’re
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Sean Aylmer: here to talk about small caps. Where do small caps
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Sean Aylmer: fit into that scenario? They’ve certainly underperformed large caps in
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Sean Aylmer: the last little bit.
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Dermot Ryan: Yeah, I think because we’ve had a very prolonged interest
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Dermot Ryan: rate hiking, it’s a couple of fifties to start and
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Dermot Ryan: then 25 points for month on month. And there’s been kind
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Dermot Ryan: of a long slow bear market, you haven’t really noticed
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Dermot Ryan: it, but the Small Ords are now down about 25% since
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Dermot Ryan: the start of 2022. That’s at 20% underperformance from large caps
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Dermot Ryan: and that probably is because smaller companies don’t have as
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Dermot Ryan: much pricing power as larger companies and maybe have to
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Dermot Ryan: compete harder to get good stuff. And so they’re a
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Dermot Ryan: little bit more vulnerable. But what we see is that
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Dermot Ryan: when the market turns, they tend to turn and move
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Dermot Ryan: up faster than the large caps. And we think at
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Dermot Ryan: the moment the crowds and investors are a little bit
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Dermot Ryan: worried about where the short- term earnings are going. But
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Dermot Ryan: often this is the time where you start to get long-
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Dermot Ryan: term opportunities.
Australia just went over 4% or 4.1% on the
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Dermot Ryan: cash rate, but similar economies like New Zealand are at
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Dermot Ryan: 5.5 and the US is 5. 25%. So we’re a
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Dermot Ryan: long way towards that pinch point where the economy will
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Dermot Ryan: settle down and inflation and economic activity gets that new
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Dermot Ryan: equilibrium. But during that intervening panic, there’s often really good
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Dermot Ryan: opportunities to buy companies with good industry positions that are
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Dermot Ryan: growing earnings, positive cash flow, and importantly for this part
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Dermot Ryan: of the cycle, low debt. And those are the kind
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Dermot Ryan: of companies we’re looking for at Renaissance.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. So tell us Dermot, can you name some of
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Sean Aylmer: the companies that you’re looking at that have those characteristics?
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Dermot Ryan: Absolutely. I mean we’ve got a number of stocks in
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Dermot Ryan: the portfolio that fit that. I mean, when I talk
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Dermot Ryan: about maybe some of the new opportunities that we’re seeing
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Dermot Ryan: at the moment. I really think that there’s this end
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Dermot Ryan: of financial years stock takes sale going on in the retail
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Dermot Ryan: sector at the moment. I mentioned this happened a year
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Dermot Ryan: ago in the US and what we’ve seen more recently has
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Dermot Ryan: been a huge number of downgrades in the last couple
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Dermot Ryan: of weeks in domestic retailers. We’ve seen Wesfarmers, Baby Bunting,
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Dermot Ryan: Universal, Accent Group, we’ve seen DJS, they’re not listed, but
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Dermot Ryan: they got apparently double- digit sale declines. So we’re seeing
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Dermot Ryan: some opportunities starting to emerge there. As I mentioned last
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Dermot Ryan: year in the US what we saw is that that downgrade
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Dermot Ryan: cycle broadened a little bit as the economy slowed further.
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Dermot Ryan: So what we’re trying to do there is start to
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Dermot Ryan: line up some targets in retail.
We have been looking
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Dermot Ryan: at some American exposed companies. One of them, to give
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Dermot Ryan: you an example would be City Chic, which is a
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Dermot Ryan: apparel retailer. They had excess inventory. They’re a year further
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Dermot Ryan: down the track in the US. So they’re actually trying
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Dermot Ryan: to work through that inventory cycle and coming through in
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Dermot Ryan: a bit of a turnaround on the other side of
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Dermot Ryan: that retail slowdown in the US. And investors like ourselves,
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Dermot Ryan: and actually Brett Blundy, the famous retail turnaround investor are
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Dermot Ryan: both buying some shares there. We’re also looking for opportunities
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Dermot Ryan: in that retail space that may not be as impacted
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Dermot Ryan: with the over- levered cohorts. And that’s an area we’re
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Dermot Ryan: working at. We’re not really stepping in and buying there.
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Dermot Ryan: So I won’t give you any other retail names yet.
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Dermot Ryan: I mean the other opportunities that we’re seeing at the
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Dermot Ryan: moment really are more on the resources side.
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Sean Aylmer: Go on, go on.
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Dermot Ryan: So yeah, I mean we’re also in a resource bear
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Dermot Ryan: market. There’s been a lot of slow economic data of
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Dermot Ryan: China. They’re now stimulating again, as well as the Western
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Dermot Ryan: world is in a slowdown. So at the moment during
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Dermot Ryan: the slowdown phase, we’re buying a lot of gold stocks
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Dermot Ryan: and we have been since probably September last year. And we
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Dermot Ryan: think they’ve got good appeal. If the slowdown decelerates faster
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Dermot Ryan: than people think, but we think as we get on
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Dermot Ryan: later in the year, we really are looking at opportunities
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Dermot Ryan: in battery, minerals again, and outside lithium. Lithium was a
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Dermot Ryan: 2020 to 2022 trade, but we think things like copper,
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Dermot Ryan: nickel, even zinc, finding companies that can get through the
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Dermot Ryan: next year but have got expandable production and new projects
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Dermot Ryan: coming through. We really like them.
But in the meantime,
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Dermot Ryan: it’s probably the gold names that are still in the
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Dermot Ryan: ascendancy. We’ve got almost a record Aussie dollar gold price.
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Dermot Ryan: And for our domestic producers, there’s been some terrible quarterlies
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Dermot Ryan: up until around now, but we think they’re going to
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Dermot Ryan: get better as COVID interruptions and labor force shortages ease
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Dermot Ryan: in Western Australia. So we think some of the Gold
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Dermot Ryan: Road and Ramelius and some of these stocks that we’ve got
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Dermot Ryan: in the portfolio are kind of well positioned in the
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Dermot Ryan: short term.
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Sean Aylmer: Stay with me Dermot, we’ll be back in a minute.
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Sean Aylmer: I’m speaking to Dermot Ryan, portfolio manager at Renaissance Smaller
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Sean Aylmer: Companies Fund. Okay. So far we’ve been talking very, I mean the retail
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Sean Aylmer: stocks, the mining stocks have been very linked to the
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Sean Aylmer: economic cycle. What about opportunities that are less dependent on
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Sean Aylmer: the cycle?
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Dermot Ryan: Yeah, I suppose, I mean small caps are all about the individual
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Dermot Ryan: stocks. It’s less about the macro generally. There’s always individual
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Dermot Ryan: opportunities that you can find in the market, one we’re
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Dermot Ryan: invested in at the moment that we like is Austal.
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Dermot Ryan: They’re the shipbuilder. They’ve got operations here and also in
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Dermot Ryan: Alabama. And they are after signing a $ 5 billion deal
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Dermot Ryan: with the US on naval vessels. They’ve got a number
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Dermot Ryan: of different bids in place as well, which might bring
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Dermot Ryan: them into submarines. They’ve got enough work on hand for
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Dermot Ryan: the next five to 10 years at what will likely
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Dermot Ryan: be pretty good margins.
And what we’re finding is a
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Dermot Ryan: lot of, there’s a buildup in defense spend with the
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Dermot Ryan: geopolitical tensions in Asia. And we think they’re just very
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Dermot Ryan: well positioned now to finally be at kind of full
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Dermot Ryan: capacity on their shipyards. We’ve seen the stock starting to
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Dermot Ryan: run, and yet there was even a few rumors last week, there
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Dermot Ryan: was a US private equity firm looking to buy in
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Dermot Ryan: some or maybe make a bid for the company. But
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Dermot Ryan: we think that’s a good stock in this particular environment
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Dermot Ryan: and it’s trading below replacement value and we think a
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Dermot Ryan: good opportunity for a medium- term grower that can grow
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Dermot Ryan: independent of the economic cycle.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. And I know, I think you’re a bit of
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Sean Aylmer: a fan of Estia Health too, aren’t you?
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Dermot Ryan: Yeah, well, Estia Health’s another one of those examples. I
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Dermot Ryan: mean, this is an aged care stock. It’s the largest
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Dermot Ryan: listed player in Australia and they’re under bid at the
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Dermot Ryan: moment by Bain. But I mean that’s a similar kind
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Dermot Ryan: of a story. We bought that stock in the middle
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Dermot Ryan: of COVID. A lot of people were worried about what
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Dermot Ryan: the impacts of COVID were and whether their patients would
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Dermot Ryan: get infected or how they’d staffed their facilities and the
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Dermot Ryan: stock just dropped precipitously during that period.
But thankfully we
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Dermot Ryan: were able to build a big position in the stock
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Dermot Ryan: and we’re now selling it for more than double, just
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Dermot Ryan: three years later. But we think even the bid that
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Dermot Ryan: Bain started, the bid at $ 3 and just raised to 3,
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Dermot Ryan: 20. We think that barely even covers the replacement cost
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Dermot Ryan: for that business. So there’s still potentially some oxide there
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Dermot Ryan: and a frank dividend before it goes. But I think
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Dermot Ryan: that’s another example of just these idiosyncratic opportunities with asset
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Dermot Ryan: backing that you can find if you can try and
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Dermot Ryan: not sift through the panic, I suppose, and just find
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Dermot Ryan: assets that you want to own.
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Sean Aylmer: The moral of this story, it seems, or at least
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Sean Aylmer: the moral of this interview might be, it’s time to
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Sean Aylmer: have a look at small caps again, Dermot.
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Dermot Ryan: Yes. Well, I think we’re probably not at the bottom,
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Dermot Ryan: but it’s always hard to catch that bottom of the
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Dermot Ryan: markets. But there’s good reasons to believe we’re getting closer
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Dermot Ryan: to that inflection point. I think inflation and interest rates
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Dermot Ryan: are going to be nearing their peak. We think that
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Dermot Ryan: once that initial pullback and spending is done, that the
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Dermot Ryan: market will and economy will settle down and people will
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Dermot Ryan: get used to the new disposable income that they have
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Dermot Ryan: and we’ll start to move forward. I mean if we
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Dermot Ryan: look at the US example we’re talking about earlier, the
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Dermot Ryan: US Russell 2000 retraced about 25% and it’s actually been
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Dermot Ryan: rebounding. It’s rebounded about 10% in the last two months.
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Dermot Ryan: So it takes a few months for these things to
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Dermot Ryan: play through, but you’ve got to get positioned before they
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Dermot Ryan: turn back up and it’s always a good idea to start
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Dermot Ryan: to step in before that recovery comes through, so you’re
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Dermot Ryan: in the market.
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Sean Aylmer: Dermot, thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.
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Dermot Ryan: Thanks, Sean.
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Sean Aylmer: That was Dermot Ryan, portfolio manager at Renaissance Smaller Companies
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Sean Aylmer: Fund. This is the Fear and Greed Daily Interview. Remember
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Sean Aylmer: you should get professional advice before making any investment decisions.
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Sean Aylmer: Join us every morning for the full episode of Fear
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Sean Aylmer: and Greed, Australia’s most popular business podcast. I’m Sean Aylmer.
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Sean Aylmer: Enjoy your day.