Following FundCalibre’s Winter investment committee, seven funds across a range of asset classes and investment styles have been awarded an Elite Rating. Four funds have also been awarded a new Elite Radar badge.
Juliet Schooling Latter, research director at FundCalibre, gives more detail on each new rating:
Seven newly Elite Rated funds:
Aegon High Yield Bond
“This strategy has a high-conviction, bottom-up approach to finding value across global high-yield markets. The style-agnostic process exploits global high yield market inefficiencies, which range across issuers, sectors and geographies, to generate long-term outperformance.
“This fund differentiates itself from its peers through its high conviction and flexible approach, while also having a depth of experience on the team. The strategy’s flexibility allows the team to operate nimbly and unearth market opportunities. It has had an excellent track record in recent years.”
Ashoka India Equity Investment Trust
“Launched in 2018, this trust invests in Indian companies of all sizes. The trust adopts a stock-picking approach to target scalable businesses with sustainable superior returns on capital. Aided by a huge bank of experienced research analysts, the trust has comfortably been the best performer in its sector since inception.
“We like the trust’s unique approach to stock selection and its ability to go deeper into both the mid and small-cap markets. A highly unconstrained vehicle, we also like its approach to ESG, specifically governance, which can be a critical issue in India.”
BlueBay Emerging Market Unconstrained Bond
“A unique high conviction fund which offers investors access to BlueBay’s best ideas across the emerging market (EM) debt universe. The fund is flexible and will invest in both hard and local currency debt and sovereign and corporate EM debt, depending on the best opportunities. The fund can also short or bet against a sovereign, corporate or currency where it has a strong view.
“A truly active fund, managed by an exceptionally experienced and well-resourced team. The fund is set up to deliver alpha and, historically, has indicated an extremely consistent process.”
Comgest Growth America
“An unconstrained, highly concentrated portfolio of between 25-35 companies. This quality growth strategy endeavours to find the highest quality companies that meet stringent ESG criteria across the US. The fund has a clear process and experienced management team that have helped guide the fund to outstanding performance throughout their tenures.
“We like the employee-owned collegiate partnership culture of Comgest. They also operate with a flat hierarchy where managers serve the dual role of portfolio managers and analysts.”
Fidelity Asian Smaller Companies
“The fund is managed by Nitin Bajaj, who has a clear philosophy and wealth of experience investing in the region. The fund has a strong process and a great track record, backed up by the infrastructure and research capability of a very capable fund house.
“This is a genuine stock-picking fund with an emphasis on buying good businesses at prices discounted by the market. The fund has a contrarian ‘value’ bias and high active share. Risk is considered in absolute terms rather than relative to any benchmark or peer group.”
Martin Currie Global Portfolio Trust
“This is a high-conviction, global unconstrained portfolio, with a focus on quality growth. The management team invests in businesses that are leaders and innovators across long-term investment themes, such as artificial intelligence, resource scarcity and demographic changes – including the growth of the emerging market middle class.
“The trust’s manager, Zehrid Osmani, has proven himself to be an excellent manager of high conviction strategies. The highly-driven research approach has proven to be extremely successful over the longer term across a range of portfolios and we see no reason why this cannot continue on this trust.”
Ninety One Diversified Income
“Launched in 2012, the fund is designed to either replace or complement bonds. The majority of the portfolio is held in fixed income while incorporating strategic equity positions. We also like the team’s use of future options and swaps to hedge equity, duration and credit risk.
“The fund targets a yield of around 4% per annum, distributed on a monthly basis with less than half the volatility of UK equities. The fund uses a mixture of growth, defensive and uncorrelated assets to achieve its returns.”
Four Elite Radar badges gained
Artemis Leading Consumer Brands
“This is a flexible global thematic fund that seeks to capture the emerging middle class’s consumption of luxury brands. It is a bottom-up, high-conviction fund that leverages the team’s experience and deep knowledge of the consumer sectors.
“We believe that this fund is in very capable hands under Swetha Ramachandran and her team. The benchmark-agnostic, unconstrained nature of the fund gives the team the freedom to be nimble and take advantage of the best opportunities they see across different luxury brands.”
GQG Partners US Equity
“A stand out unconstrained, concentrated portfolio of high-quality US companies with durable earnings. Their focus is on forward-looking quality, rather than companies that have done well historically. This view of quality allows them to strip away labels like value and growth in favour of long-term compounding.
“GQG’s surge in popularity and reputation as a trusted asset manager is not by chance. This fund has provided stellar returns for investors since launch, and we expect this to continue.”
Man GLG Dynamic Income
“Jonathan Golan has had an incredible first 10 years to his career managing corporate bond funds. This new fund, which sits in the strategic bond sector, gives him even greater flexibility to pursue his best ideas. The fund has the added ability to buy high yield, emerging markets and government bonds.
“Golen is undoubtedly one of the most exciting young fund managers operating in the market today. This fund is off to an exceptional start, and we think the evidence suggests he can continue to deliver in the future.”
Redwheel Biodiversity
“This fund seeks to profit from what it believes is a multi-decade growth opportunity arising from the drive to protect biodiversity. Globally investing in all sizes, this active multi-cap fund targets companies aligned with investment themes essential for biodiversity protection.
“This is an interesting new strategy run by a manager with strong experience and expertise in this space. The fund has only recently launched so it will have to prove it can deliver long-term results – but is certainly one to watch given the scope for growth in this market.”
