Manager Research
all members of our manager research team have over ten years of investment experience.
When we first reviewed the Schroder Global Recovery fund in 2016, we rated it Tier 2. Although we were comfortable that the business was supportive of the fund’s deep value investment philosophy, that the process was implemented successfully and consistently in the UK Recovery fund (which has a longer track record) and that the fund was managed by an experienced team, we had some concerns that we wanted to monitor.
Firstly, although the UK Recovery fund can invest up to 20% in non-UK equities, the team had to increase their coverage dramatically for Global Recovery. Given that the Value franchise only consisted of 5 team members, we felt that the team was stretched. Secondly, the fund was fairly new and managing a global equity portfolio is quite different from managing a UK equity portfolio, with the added complexity of various regions, sector and currencies. Overall, we needed more time to assess the team implementing their process on a global scale.
Since then, they have added 2 new team members and standardised components of their process to build scale, so the team appears better resourced than before. We have also seen them stick to their philosophy and process during the trying performance period in 2015 (where value struggled and underperformed world indices considerably), which gave us enough confidence from this strategy to upgrade the fund to Tier 1.
By extension, we have also upgraded the rating on the ABSA Global Value Feeder fund to Tier 1, as it feeds directly into Global Recovery.
Schroder Global Recovery upgraded to Tier 1
16 Nov 2017