| ANNUALIZED SINCE INCEPTION | QUARTERLY | YTD |
|---|---|---|
| 12.3% | - | 21.7% |
| 2025 |
|---|
| 21.7% |
Rozendal's Hedge Fund delivered a solid 21.7% absolute return in 2025 but underperformed the FTSE/JSE All Share Index's exceptional 42.4% return. The underperformance was primarily attributed to limited exposure to precious metals, which drove South African market returns as the sector more than tripled during the year. The fund maintained modest long platinum exposure and modest short gold exposure, missing the dramatic precious metals rally. Key contributors included Valterra Platinum, Tiger Brands, and Curro, while detractors included the short position in Harmony Gold, Calgro M3, and York Timber. The manager completed investment cycles in Aena and Makita, both delivering strong returns. Looking forward, the firm emphasizes their competitive advantage in exploiting market myopia through long-term value investing, supported by recent academic research validating their behavioral approach. While acknowledging gold's role as an alternative currency, they view current gold prices as extraordinarily expensive and prefer owning attractively priced assets in their portfolio.
Rozendal Partners exploits market myopia by maintaining a long-term, value-oriented approach that capitalizes on opportunities created when short-term investors find stocks uncomfortable to hold due to volatility or poor recent performance.
The manager expects gold prices to eventually restore to more sensible levels but has no confidence in forecasting when or how this sentiment change will occur. They maintain confidence that owning attractively priced assets in the Rozendal funds is more likely to deliver satisfactory long-term investment results than owning gold at current prices.
| Date | Letter | Tickers | Keywords | Pitches | Quick Takes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 29 2026 | 2025 Q4 | 6586.T, AENA.MC, AMS.JO, BAYN.DE, BLU.JO, CGR.JO, COH.JO, DGE.L, HAR.JO, JD, KSPI.L, MTN.JO, SLV, TBS.JO, YRK.JO | gold, Long/Short, materials, Mining, Precious Metals, South Africa, value |
TBS SJ AENA SM 6586 JP |
Gold has reached unprecedented inflation-adjusted levels and appears extraordinarily expensive relative to historical measures. The manager believes there is a fair price for every asset… |
| QUARTER | THEMES | TAGS |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 Q4 |
GoldGold returned +65% in dollars in 2025, driven by broadening demand from central banks, professional and retail investors. Central banks now hold 24% of reserves in gold versus 23% in US Treasuries for the first time. Maintained 12% portfolio allocation throughout the year. |
Central Banks Reserves Diversification Demand |
MaterialsMaterials sector experienced sharp turnaround in 2025 with 32.3% returns, driven by unstoppable gold price and precious metals boom. Platinum group metals prices materially higher than incentive prices after years of low investment. |
Gold Platinum Silver Precious metals Mining | |
Precious MetalsThe precious metals sector experienced dramatic outperformance in 2025, with the FTSE/JSE Precious Metals and Mining index more than tripling. This was the primary driver of South African equity market returns and the main reason for the Hedge Fund's underperformance relative to its benchmark. |
Platinum Mining South Africa Commodities | |
ValueManager emphasizes investing in controlled companies trading at significant discounts to NAV, with European holding companies showing discounts of 30-68%. The strategy focuses on securities mispricing where real value exists, contrasting with overvalued technology stocks. |
Discounts NAV Mispricing Undervalued Controlled |
| Date | Pitch Type | Author | Ticker | Company | Industry | Sub Industry | Bull / Bear | Exchange | Keywords | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 29, 2026 | Fund Letters | Wilhelm Hertzog | TBS SJ | Tiger Brands Ltd | Consumer Staples | Packaged Foods | Bull | New York Stock Exchange | Execution, Food, management, South Africa, turnaround | Login |
| Jan 29, 2026 | Fund Letters | Wilhelm Hertzog | AENA SM | Aena S.M., S.A. | Industrials | Airport Operators | Neutral | Brasil Bolsa Balcão | Airports, Cove Recovery, infrastructure, Regulation, valuation | Login |
| Jan 29, 2026 | Fund Letters | Wilhelm Hertzog | 6586 JP | Makita Corporation | Industrials | Power Tools | Neutral | New York Stock Exchange | Cyclicals, Industrials, Inventory, Margins, Mean Reversion | Login |
| TICKER | COMMENTARY |
|---|---|
| AMS.JO | Mining conglomerate Anglo American sold and unbundled its majority interest in Anglo American Platinum ('Amplats') during 2024 and 2025. To mark the end of Anglo's ownership, Amplats changed its name to Valterra Platinum. There have been no major changes in operations or strategy at Valterra since leaving the Anglo stable. There has, however, been a major change in the price of the platinum group metals that Valterra produces. A change in Western governments' stances towards the electrification of motorised transport, and subdued production following years of low prices and limited investment by miners has finally resulted in PGM prices materially higher than incentive prices. The exceptionally high gold price has also dragged along platinum in its wake: platinum has some of the same store of value appeal as gold, and the two metals are to a limited extent substitutes for each other in jewellery production. The sharp metals price increase in the sector has lifted share prices across the sector dramatically. The four major PGM producers listed in South Africa (of which Valterra is the largest by PGM production volume) saw their share prices increase three to four times in the space of the year, and the Hedge Fund's Valterra investment hence contributed very pleasingly to returns for the year. |
| BLU.JO | We first came to Cell C through Blue Label Unlimited (BLU). BLU remains a compelling opportunity, even if it has been an exceptionally volatile business to own over the last three years: we have seen the market capitalisation move from roughly R2.5bn to R15bn, and then back down to around R9bn today. BLU's core business is a high free-cash-flow, capital-light distribution operation, currently valued at roughly 4x FCF. In November last year, BLU listed Cell C by selling down its 95% stake. BLU proceeded with the IPO at a valuation of R9bn. Based on our estimates, that implied a c. 19% free-cash-flow yield — meaning new IPO investors would capture most of the discount, not BLU shareholders. |
| CGR.JO | Calgro M3 is a leading developer of affordable residential property. Its largest exposure is to Gauteng, where the residential property market has been weak. Out of caution and concern about potential disruptions around the 2024 national elections, the company had pulled back on the pace of development, which in turn has held back the delivery of completed units during 2025. The prospects for the South African residential property market have certainly improved in recent months. Calgro's share price is only likely to reflect this once there is tangible evidence of progress and success at the very large new Bankenveld development in the north of Johannesburg that it has embarked on recently. |
| COH.JO | Private school business Curro was a Covid recovery laggard that first became a standalone Hedge Fund portfolio investment during 2023 (the Hedge Fund held some indirect exposure to Curro via former parent company PSG Group in earlier years. Difficult business conditions have kept the share price rather depressed since then. In August 2025, the Jannie Mouton Foundation made an offer to acquire all Curro's shares in issue in exchange for a mix of Capitec and PSG Financial Services shares, as well as a small amount of cash. The implied value of this offer was far more than the prevailing share price, and the dramatic rise in Curro's share price to reflect this was a welcome contributor to the Hedge Fund's returns for the year. |
| DGE.L | Diageo represents one of the clearest examples of brands crystallising into cornered resources. Its leading spirits brands are reinforced by production realities that competitors cannot accelerate, most notably long-dated ageing inventories and protected geographic areas of distribution. A rival can copy a label, but it cannot replicate decades of maturing whisky stock or compress centuries of brand heritage into a marketing cycle. This combination of time-based scarcity and cultural embeddedness gives Diageo durable pricing power that is unusually resilient through economic cycles. In Helmer's terms, the brand ceases to be merely persuasive and instead becomes an independently owned, scarce asset that underpins long-term returns on capital. That said, recent demand following a Covid-led surge has softened, particularly in South America. It will be the job of Sir Dave Lewis—the former Tesco turnaround CEO, to reintroduce a greater cost discipline across the business and ensure their leading global brands are well positioned for the evolving landscape of consumer tastes. |
| HAR.JO | New positions were initiated in Harmony |
| JD | The difference in fortunes between the Chinese and Hong Kong stock markets and JD.com's share price has been stark. Whereas the overall markets have been very strong, JD.com's share price declined during 2025. This is not on account of the fortunes of JD's core business: retail revenues and profitability have been growing strongly. The market concern reflected in the share price sprouts from JD's decision to invest heavily in a new food delivery venture in China. Here it will be competing against very large, very well capitalised incumbents like Meituan and Alibaba. The market is rightly concerned that this will prove to be costly and has punished JD's share price accordingly – at least in relative terms. |
| KSPI.L | As in the first half of the year (refer to our last investor letter), Kaspi's share price lagged in the second half of the year. Some market challenges in Kazakhstan only became visible in reported results during the latter half of the year, which resulted in more muted revenue and profit growth for Kaspi than what investors have historically been used to. New government smartphone registration requirements and iPhone shortages depressed e-commerce revenues (smartphones are a material revenue generator for most large online general merchandise retailers), whilst higher banking reserve requirements, a new tax on interest income and higher base rates payable on customer deposits depressed interest income on the banking side of the business. |
| SLV | The Global Fund has had an investment in silver – by way of the iShares Silver Trust exchange traded fund – for several years now. For much of this time, it served its purpose as a currency alternative and inflation hedge just fine. Strong industrial demand (mainly from the Chinese solar panel industry) coupled with constrained mine supply and the ever-increasing price of gold supported the silver price. But in the second half of 2025, the type of speculative mania which grips the silver market every decade or two suddenly erupted. By year-end, the inflation adjusted price reached levels in the vicinity of that seen during the infamous cornering of the silver market by the Hunt brothers in 1980. |
| TBS.JO | Venerable South African food producer Tiger Brands was a stock market darling during the mid-2010s, enjoying stellar share price ratings. But as with so many South African businesses, Tiger Brands went on an ill-considered foreign expansion strategy (into Africa, in Tiger's case) which cost it dearly. Equity investors lost confidence in the business, and the share delivered dismal returns in the decade leading up to 2024. Tjaart Kruger, a highly regarded industry veteran who led Premier Foods to great success in the decade during which Tiger's troubles were surfacing, was appointed CEO of the company late in 2023. The turnaround in the fortunes of the business since then has been spectacular. The share price has followed suit. |
| YRK.JO | York is the leading sawmill operator and plywood producer in South Africa by volume. However, it has been beset by perennial plant performance problems at its largest sawmill in Sabie, which it has yet to resolve. In addition, the global plywood market (York exports a material percentage of its plywood production) has weakened during the year. Demand (tied to US residential construction) has been under pressure, and the weakening US dollar has eroded the profitability of exports. The result has been a York share price which continues to languish at a deep discount to the value of its assets. |
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