BARRACK STREET RAISES $16M

GOLD Coast fund manager Manny Pohl has raised $16 million for his latest venture which is poised to list on the Australian Securities exchange next week.

Pohl’s Barrack Street Investments Ltd (ASX: BST) will be based in Sydney and is expected to list on August 14.

Barrack Street will be managed by ECP Asset Management (ECPAM), which is headed by Pohl who is targeting small and mid-cap ASX-listed companies with the new venture.

Pohl says the capital raising was aimed at small private super funds with fewer than five members.

“It’s widely acknowledged that SMSFs are heavily weighted to ASX top 50 companies and cash,” he says.

“We are delighted that our message of diversification beyond the top 50 ASX stocks resonated with the SMSF sector and others.”

Barrack Street shares have been issued at $1 each, attached with a two-year option exercisable at $1 each.

Barrack Street, which is chaired by Gold Coast businessman Murray d’Almeida, will be headquartered in Sydney with the team there to include Pohl’s sons Jared and Jason, and co-founder Andrew Dale.

Pohl says Barrack Street Investments will sit parallel with his other listed vehicle, the Gold Coast-based Flagship Investments Ltd (ASX: FSI) which Pohl operates from his Bundall headquarters.

Pohl has extracted strong returns from the small and mid-cap sector of the market over the past 30 years.

His management company, ECPAM, has outperformed the market by almost five times since its inception in July last year to the end of the March quarter this year.

ECPAM has returned 24.8 per cent compared with a 5.4 per cent return from the ASX Small Ordinaries Accumulation Index.

ECPAM manages funds on behalf of wholesale investors, targeting quality listed companies.