Contrarius wins the Raging Bull Certificate for Best Global Multi Asset High Equity Fund for Straight Performance over Three Years

The BCI Contrarius Global Balanced Feeder Fund is a rand-denominated fund that provides local access to the Contrarius Global Balanced Fund, an Irish UCITS fund denominated in US dollars which is approved for marketing in South Africa.

Contrarius, founded in 2008 by Stephen Mildenhall—the former Chief Investment Officer of Allan Gray Limited—is an independent global investment management group with a track record of over 17 years across its global equity and global balanced funds.

Contrarius is no stranger to the Raging Bull Awards—having previously secured trophies for its flagship Contrarius Global Equity Fund in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2024. This award for its Global Balanced Feeder Fund covers the first three years’ performance since the feeder fund was launched in partnership with Boutique Collective Investments. The feeder fund prevailed in a highly competitive category, delivering an annualised rand return of 21.7% over the three years to 31 December 2025—more than nine percentage points above the 12.3% p.a. that the 60/40 benchmark returned.

Contrarius is defined by its contrarian, valuation-based, and long-term investment philosophy. Contrarius conducts bottom-up proprietary fundamental research to identify companies that it believes are significantly undervalued. The investment manager is known for its actively managed funds that do not seek to replicate their respective benchmarks but instead have portfolios that are typically very different from those of its peers.

The Contrarius Global Balanced Fund employs this contrarian investment philosophy and has the flexibility to take advantage of opportunities across asset classes and regions. During 2025, the fund had a high weighting to a selection of equities which substantially outperformed global equity indices. The fund’s exposure to precious metals added to performance and diversification.

Commenting on the Contrarius Global Balanced Fund’s current composition and outlook for the year ahead, Heaton van der Linde recalled a 2024 article with Personal Finance: “We spoke following the 2024 Raging Bull Awards and offered our perspective on where we were finding value at the time. These included value-oriented stocks and growth-oriented stocks, some of which we believed to be meaningful long-term beneficiaries of advances in AI.”

 “Today, we believe we are in the midst of profound disruption. This is likely to be beyond a typical generational disruption that happens every 20–30 years. The disruption from real-world AI (autonomous driving and robotics) and—ultimately—artificial general intelligence is expected to change most aspects of society. As contrarian, value investors, we believe the opportunities are immense.”

“This was the topic of our latest Global Quarterly Investor Commentary [available at www.contrarius.com/commentaries], where we outlined our approach to the current market in which we see the total universe of listed shares falling into three broad buckets: AI winners, AI-proof, and AI-threatened.”

Van der Linde continued, “As always, valuation discipline remains critical. We remain focused on identifying the shares which offer the most compelling long-term returns and where their competitive advantages (AI-related or otherwise) are, in our view, underestimated by the market.”

This latest 2025 Raging Bull Certificate reaffirms the strength of Contrarius’ contrarian, valuation-based approach. Whether seeking direct offshore exposure, rand-based foreign exposure, or local South African funds, investors can access the Contrarius investment approach through a select range of funds designed to meet a variety of needs. The Contrarius funds are available to invest in directly or through an expanding presence across several leading LISP platforms in South Africa.