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Acorn Capital, portfolio manager Rick Squire talks about the energy and resource sectors, some of the funds best ideas and outlook for commodities and energy prices as the world emerges from OCIVD-19 lockdown. Anna Napoli: Hello, Anna Napoli for the Finance News Network. Joining me from Acorn Capital is portfolio manager, Rick Squire. Rick, welcome to FNN. Rick Squire: Thanks Anna. Pleasure to be here. Anna Napoli: First up, Rick, could you tell me about Acorn Capital and the investment research capabilities in the resources sector? Rick Squire: Sure. Acorn Capital is a specialist fund manager for emerging Australian companies, and the resources sector forms part of its DNA. Now, the reason I say that, is the company's founder, Barry Fairley, was formerly a leading Australian resources analyst and mining executive. And it was through that experience that he recognized that the resources sector was one of the most inefficient parts of the market. By capitalizing on that inefficiency, Acorn's resources sector has performed strongly against most of the relevant benchmarks over a range of timeframes. An example of that is that since inception, Acorn's resources portfolio has generated an annualized return of about 11.5% versus 4.8% for the ASX Small Resources Index. Anna Napoli: And Rick, the resources supercycle generated great prosperity between around 2000 and 2012. Do you see this event repeating itself again soon? Rick Squire: Yes, certainly the supercycle was a spectacular event, but what investors need to remember is that event was largely driven by the urbanization of China. Now, that event involved the proportion of the Chinese population living in an urban environment, increasing from about 18% in 1980, to nearly 60% today. The resultant construction boom was what drove the supercycle, in particular, the demand for iron ore and coking coal used in steel production. Now, looking forward, urbanization is expected to continue in China, but the country is now e...