Australian mid-caps may sit between the market’s giants and emerging small companies — but Brenton Saunders argues that is exactly where some of the most interesting opportunities can appear.

In this video podcast, Brenton Saunders, portfolio manager of Pendal MidCap Fund, explains how the midcap universe differs from the broader Australian share market, with fewer dominant stocks and a broader spread of sector exposures.

He also discusses the major shifts reshaping the benchmark, from gold and lithium to infrastructure, AI-driven data centre demand and the rise of private superannuation platforms.

While opportunity is broadening, portfolio balance and disciplined stock selection remain critical.

Here is an excerpt from the video podcast:

“There’s a bunch of first order and then second order kind of ways you can do that. In the first order ways are most obviously the companies that are being asked to deploy this capital, namely contractors.

“We’re well represented in the contractor space in midcaps, generally always have been, but if you think about companies like Ventia, Downer, Worley Parsons are in the space, but we’ve had some great new additions more recently.

“Some of the second order ways of doing it is just upstream of that in some of the basic materials, again, that are being used to populate a lot of this infrastructure, and I guess I’m referring more specifically to the data centres.

“Copper plays a big role in that. Lithium will play a big role in storage for those kind of things. So there’s a bunch of first and second order ways to play that.”

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This podcast has been prepared by Pendal Fund Services Limited (PFSL) ABN 13 161 249 332 AFSL 431426.

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