The top 5 global equity funds delivered more than 37% in a volatile FY25

FY25 was anything but smooth sailing for equity markets. Investors navigated a storm of macro risks: escalating geopolitical conflicts, renewed volatility around Trump 2.0 and then, of course, Trump’s tariffs.

Despite the noise, a select group of global equity managers delivered standout results. Rather than retreating, these funds leaned into growth trends - AI, digital infrastructure, and innovation-led companies - capitalising on pockets of opportunity amidst broader uncertainty.

So, which funds managed to outperform in one of the most unpredictable market environments in recent years? We’ve crunched the numbers and revealed the five best-performing global equity funds of FY25 - and the companies that powered their success.

How we compiled these lists

These global equity funds are all listed on the Livewire 'Find Funds' menu (top right-hand side of your page). It should be noted that this is not an exhaustive list of all the global equities funds domiciled in Australia - there are others not listed in Livewire's 'Find Funds' marketplace.

The filters we used were:

• In the “Fund type” box, select “Managed Funds”
• In “Asset Class”, select “global equities"
• We then manually filtered results based on 1-year returns.

NOTE: While it is an interesting exercise to examine fund performance over a one-year period, most funds recommend minimum investment periods of five years or more. As such, it would be worthwhile to consider longer-term performance across cycles when researching funds or making investment decisions. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future return.

The Results

#1 - ARK Global Disruptive Innovation Fund

Managed Fund

ARK Global Disruptive Innovation Fund

Global Shares

View

Fund profile: The world is changing rapidly. While traditional investors seek safety in benchmarks and passive strategies, ARK believes this behaviour is counterproductive. Innovation is causing disruption and the risks associated with the traditional world order are rising.

ARK strives to invest at the pace of innovation. The ARK Global Disruptive Innovation Fund aims to achieve a target average total return (before fees, expenses and taxes) of 10 to 15% per annum over a rolling five-year period. The fund is managed by Catherine Wood alongside a collective team of analysts.

As per the May monthly report, the top 10 holdings in the fund were as follows:

#2 - Ophir Global Opportunities Fund

Managed Fund

Ophir Global Opportunities Fund

Global Shares

View

Fund profile: The Fund typically invests in 30-50 global small & mid-cap companies and is benchmarked against the MSCI World SMID Index (Net) (AUD). Utilising Ophir’s extensive fundamental, bottom-up research process, the Fund focuses on identifying high-quality emerging businesses exposed to structural growth opportunities.

With a bias toward cash-generative businesses with sound balance sheets and highly capable management teams, the Fund seeks to identify these opportunities early in a company’s life cycle, when it is typically under-researched and under-valued by the investment market. 

The fund is managed by Andrew Mitchell and Steven Ng. In the table below are the top 5 portfolio holdings as per the June monthly report. 

The commentary below is from the Ophir Letter to Investors - June 2025

You don’t want to be a one trick pony or a lucky duck 

One of our favourite ways to tell if a fund manager is more likely to be skilful or just lucky is to ask them this “How many different (uncorrelated) bets led to your outperformance?” 

The more there are, the more likely there is to be a repeatable skill in their investment process.

If you have only one or two stocks doing all the heavy lifting, contributing to your outperformance, then, though it's still not certain, you’re more likely to have just gotten lucky.

Put another way, the greater the spread of stocks contributing to your outperformance, the more comfortable you should be that outperformance is likely to continue in the future. 

And before you ask, yes, they still need to be uncorrelated. Owning 40 gold stocks out of a supposed diversified 50-stock portfolio when the gold price does well, doesn’t mean you got 40 separate calls right, you got one!

The key point being there was a wide spread of contributors to the return of our Global Opportunities Fund in FY25. While that doesn’t guarantee results in the future, we think it makes it more likely our investment process can sustainably produce outperformance in the long term, as it has in the past.

You can hear more from Andrew Mitchell via the content below: 

• Four lessons from a "best-ever" month and a key holding we think has big upside
• Andrew Mitchell: The market always wins

#3 - Hyperion Global Growth Companies Fund (Managed Fund) (ASX: HYGG)

Managed Fund

Hyperion Global Growth Companies Fund (Managed Fund)

Global Shares

View

Fund profile: The Hyperion Global Growth Companies Fund (Managed Fund) seeks to achieve medium to long-term capital growth and income by investing in high-calibre companies primarily listed on a recognised global exchange, at the time of investment.

Hyperion applies a research-driven, bottom-up investment philosophy to the fund and is aimed at investors who are seeking capital growth. Hyperion recommends a minimum five-year investment timeframe. 

The top 5 holdings as per the May Fund update: 

You can hear more from Hyperion via the content below: 

•  Hyperion delivers again: AI, innovation, and structural growth drive returns

#4 - Plato Global Alpha Fund (ASX: PGA1)

Managed Fund

Plato Global Alpha Fund

Global Shares

View

Fund profile: The Plato Global Alpha Fund (the ‘Fund’) aims to outperform the MSCI World Net Returns Unhedged Index by 4% p.a. (after fees) over the medium-long term. The Fund uses an all-weather investment style that seeks to deliver consistent alpha over the cycle.

The fund is managed by Dr David Allen, a regular contributor to the Livewire platform. You can view his latest wires via the links below: 

• Did a Golden Cross just ignite the ASX 200? What this signal usually means for global and Australian equities
• The Dirty Dozen and the Pristine Fifteen: Crash-tested stocks to avoid - and to embrace

The tables below show the top 5 total return contributors in the Fund over the past 12 months, and the top 5 active long equity holdings - as per the May monthly report. 

#5 - Munro Global Growth Small & Mid Cap Fund

Managed Fund

Munro Global Growth Small & Mid Cap Fund

Global Shares

View

Fund profile: The investment return objective of the Fund is to maximise long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in a concentrated long-only portfolio of global growth-oriented small and medium capitalisation Companies.

The fund is long only, typically holds between 20-40 stocks, and has a minimum suggested investment period of 5 years. The fund is led by Lead Portfolio Manager Qiao Ma, alongside the Munro investment team. Qiao will be speaking at our upcoming event Livewire Live, which you can read about here:

Education

Livewire Live 2025: Early Bird tickets now available. Secure your seat today!

View

You can also read our recent interviews with Qiao by following the links below:

• Less than 5% of stocks are “genuine winners” – here’s how to find them
• Hunting for the best global growth small and mid cap companies

As per the latest monthly report from June, the top 5 holdings and areas of interest in the Fund are below:

Important notes about the data

• We excluded listed products (namely ETFs) from this list as they will be covered in other wires and to keep the focus of this piece on global equities
• Fund performance is typically viewed over longer timeframes than one year (i.e. three-year and five-year rolling periods). Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future return. The tables above simply capture the best-performing funds, in their respective categories, for the past 12 months.
• All data is supplied by Morningstar. If you would like to conduct your own research into top-performing funds, you can do so by clicking here.