Manager Research

Nedgroup Investments recently announced two changes to their best of breed multi-asset high-equity offering (both effective 1 March 2017):

• firstly, the Truffle MET Balanced fund was moved to the Nedgroup Manco and approval was received to change the name of the fund to the Nedgroup Investments Balanced Fund.  Besides the Manco change, there will be no changes to the management, investment style, process or to the fees.  Importantly, the performance track record of the fund will be retained.


• secondly, approval was received to change the mandate of the Nedgroup Investments Managed Fund to be an SA only balanced fund (i.e. no offshore investments) following a ballot of the investors. The FSB considers the mandate change significant to the extent that they feel the performance history is no longer reflective of the way the fund is managed. Managed will therefore lose its performance history, including the period when the fund was managed by RE:CM.

Nedgroup first appointed Truffle Asset Management as best of breed manager for the Managed fund in November 2015, replacing RE:CM, whose deep value investment style had underperformed the market significantly.

Resultantly, Truffle will now manage two multi-asset high equity funds under the Nedgroup banner: Nedgroup Investments Balanced Fund, which is the typical Regulation 28 balanced offering including up to 25% offshore exposure, and Nedgroup Investments Managed Fund, an SA only balanced fund.  Through the changes, Nedgroup have effectively kept Truffle’s decent performance track record and the relatively poor Nedgroup Managed fund’s track record is not reflected from 1 March 2017 (even though they will keep the past track record available on their website for transparency).

We allocated a Tier 2 rating to the Truffle MET Balanced Fund before, and given the fact that the Nedgroup Balanced Fund will be managed in the same way, we have no reason to change our rating.