Without a single annual drawdown in its 27-year history, the Peregrine Capital Pure Hedge QI Fund (Pure Hedge Fund) exemplifies the fund manager’s consistent performance for more than 27 years while delivering inflation-beating risk-adjusted returns to investors.

Brought to market when David Fraser and Clive Nates started Peregrine Capital on 1 July 1998 as an independent boutique asset management firm focusing on hedge fund strategies, the flagship Pure Hedge Fund set the tone for the fund manager's exceptional performance, by returning 61.36% in its first year during a period when the JSE All Share Index shed -10%.

Since then, the fund has yielded an over 10146% return* on capital that was invested in the fund at inception. The Pure Hedge Fund invests across asset classes, including equities, bonds, property, cash and cash equivalents, both locally and offshore, with a preference for equities and fixed income instruments.

“We employ a bottom-up stock selection process based on rigorous and disciplined fundamental research to determine the intrinsic value in shares and identify undervalued securities that offer strong upside potential over the medium to longer term,” explains Jacques Conradie, Peregrine Capital CEO and the fund's co-portfolio manager.

“When executing our best investment ideas, we draw on our years of experience and insights gained by building a detailed understanding of specific companies and sectors, rather than predicting the economic trends or taking a view on overall markets.

The ultimate objective of the Pure Hedge Fund is to offer investment stability and downside protection by reducing risk through disciplined hedging practices and maintaining low equity exposure to minimise correlation with the market.

“While we aim to deliver returns above inflation over the medium term and to grow the purchasing power of investor capital, our greatest advantage in delivering long-term investment growth pertains to the fund's consistent performance over the past quarter century.”

Conradie highlights the disastrous effect of massive drawdowns on long-term investment growth. “Losing 50% in a drawdown means investors would need to make a 100% return to return to the same value. That is why Peregrine Capital believes that consistent performance year in and year out, and compounding returns without big negative drawdowns gets investors to 100x returns* realised in the Pure Hedge Fund.”

The fund manager's steadfast adherence to this principle has been borne out in the performance data. Over its 27-year history, the Peregrine Capital Pure Hedge Fund has become one of the top-performing funds in the country, with an annualised return of 18.77% since inception, versus 9.75% from SA Multi Asset – Low Equity Category over the same period*.

And Conradie remains resolute in the fund manager's ability to keep this unprecedented performance streak alive, despite the challenging global and local macroeconomic environment.

“Our team continues looking for unique and differentiated opportunities to exploit in a market that we consider an attractive hunting ground for bottom-up investors with a hedge fund toolkit,” he concludes.

*Data as at 31 May 2025 | Source: Morningstar, Peregrine Capital.