Funds lose Elite Rating after latest investment committee review

During our July investment committee review meeting, we decided to remove the Elite Rating from the following five funds, as they no longer pass the AlphaQuest screen.

Aberdeen Asia Pacific Equity and Aberdeen Global Asian Smaller Companies

We believe that these funds became too large to manage. Coupled with the difficulties of a team decision making process, when analysts are spread across five different countries, this has had an impact on performance. With the asset class so much out-of-favour, these funds are in heavy redemption and we do not expect the situation to change any time soon.

JOHCM Japan

The fund has underperformed, despite having a bias towards mid and small cap companies, which have done very well in Japan over the past few years. It is now behind the sector average over one, three and five years.

Legg Mason Global Equity Income

The fund has performed in line with the average fund in the sector over three and five years but its more recent performance has been disappointing. We think there are now better alternatives in this increasingly competitive sector.

M&G UK Inflation Linked Corporate Bond

Whilst the fund has been less volatile than the sector average, due to taking less duration risk, it has substantially underperformed the average index-linked gilt fund despite taking on the extra credit risk associated with corporate bonds. It has also failed in its primary objective to beat inflation since launch.