ACATIS Value Event Fonds (by GANÉ)

Statement

In 2008, GANÉ Aktiengesellschaft together with ACATIS Investment KVG mbH, Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe Privatbank AG and Universal-Investment­-Gesellschaft mbH launched a flexible balanced fund. From 2008 to 2024, this formerly called ACATIS GANÉ Value Event Fund served many investors as a basic investment for a long-term and balanced investment based on our investment methodology and our value event philosophy.

The Value Event investment concept was developed by Dr Uwe Rathausky, Henrik Muhle and the third founding partner of GANÉ Aktiengesellschaft, Dr Dirk Schellenberger, in 2007. In 2008, Dr. Uwe Rathausky and Henrik Muhle approached ACATIS with the investment concept in order to launch a joint fund as co-initiators under the management company umbrella (KVG) of Universal-Investment-Gesellschaft mbH.

ACATIS was responsible for regulatory and organizational tasks, while GANÉ was responsible for the concept and investment decisions. Distribution was carried out jointly by the parties in consultation.

On October 1, 2018, ACATIS took over the management company status (KVG) for the joint fund from Universal-Investment. In this context, we asked ACATIS for a fair and balanced initiator agreement to put in writing our partnership as it stood since 2008, including all agreements, thus providing legal certainty and stability for both parties as well as for our investors. Despite repeated requests by the Management and the Supervisory Board of GANÉ Aktiengesellschaft, ACATIS refused to sign such an assured draft agreement.

In 2019, ACATIS undertook an attempt to protect the joint fund name “ACATIS Gané Value Event Fonds” as well as subsequently in 2020 the name “ACATIS GANÉ Value Event Fonds” at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) without prior consultation. As the “GANÉ” trademark had already been protected for many years – which was clearly recognizable for ACATIS at the time when the trademark application for the fund was filed – the registration of both variants of the fund name “ACATIS GANÉ Value Event Fonds” was successfully vetoed. On 1 October 2022, ACATIS changed the fund name to “ACATIS Value Event Fonds” without any advance notice.

Nevertheless, we kept a constructive attitude and approached ACATIS with the aim to restore the original fund along with rights of use, and to resume talks on a fair initiator agreement. ACATIS made it clear that talks would only be held if we were prepared to make major financial concessions – due to the distribution of operational tasks, GANÉ has received a larger share of the fund fees (including 80 percent of the performance-related management fee) since its launch. Although we signaled our willingness to make such a concession and subsequently submitted a draft initiators’ agreement, which was intended to put in writing our partnership as it stood since 2008 with all agreements and thus protect both sides, partnership negotiations were once again rejected.

On February 12, 2024, ACATIS terminated the contractual relationships with our liability umbrella BN & Partners Capital AG without prior notice and without explanation. We learnt about this from the press. The reason subsequently given was our launch of a defensive mixed fund (max. 50% equity allocation, EUR 11 million volume), which did not affect the joint offensive mixed fund (max. 100% equity allocation, EUR 8 billion volume) at all, but instead was designed to meet investor demand in a complementary, very defensive product. If ACATIS had an interest in the continuation of the partnership, a brief clarifying discussion would have been preferable to such a radical cancellation and an agreement could have been reached.

Following the termination of the partnership, we asked ACATIS to withdraw the termination and signaled our willingness to continue working together in the future. ACATIS rejected this in short syllables.

Instead, ACATIS attempted to erase us from the success story of the last 15 years: In all fund-related documents (including the fund prospectus, factsheets, monthly reports, basic information sheets) as well as on the website www.acatis.de and in a fund presentation handed out at the Citywire industry event in Montreux from May 15 to 17, 2024, all references to the previous collaboration with GANÉ Aktiengesellschaft as well as the elementary contribution of Dr Uwe Rathausky and Henrik Muhle to the success of the joint fund were concealed.

These events suggest that the separation was planned by ACATIS for a long time.

Over the past fifteen years, we have worked with commitment and dedication on our life’s work, the joint fund project. The performance, enthusiastic investors and a doubling of the fund volume to 8 billion euros in the last four years alone speak for themselves. As do the numerous awards, top ratings and prizes – such as the “Fund Manager of the Year” award in 2019 and 2024 for fund advisors Dr Uwe Rathausky and Henrik Muhle.

We are seeing an overwhelming encouragement from our investors and would like to express our sincere thanks for this. Investors have called for a fast solution, and we have responded immediately to give them a new home: The GANÉ Global Balanced Fund was converted on February 23, 2024 and has since followed our usual Value Event strategy with a flexible and dynamic approach. On April 2, 2024, the fund name was changed to GANÉ Value Event Fund in order to fully reflect the strategy already changed on February 23, 2024.

We look forward to continuing our 15-year success story, now in the GANÉ Value Event Fund under the umbrella of GANÉ Investment-AG with sub-funds, together with our trusted partners Universal-Investment-Gesellschaft mbH as external investment management company (KVG) and BN & Partners Capital AG as liability umbrella. Thank you for your continued trust.

Performance since inception per calendar year (Share class A)

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. The performance figures take into account all costs in accordance with the BVI method.​ Source: Universal-­­Investment­-Gesellschaft mbH. Further Information is available on our website as well as on »Contact GANÉ« or »Contact ACATIS«.